Spartan, Meet Bounty Hunter
by Machinist's Guardian Archangel
Summary: What happens when two universes collide, a pair of ridiculously dedicated warriors used to fighting entirely different wars, now forced to work together thanks to circumstance? Maybe friendship, rivalry, romance, or professionalism. Regardless, the enemy is going to die. Commissioned by mcxh-raildex. Cover art comes from paradox828. Both users are from DeviantArt.
1. Spartan, Meet Bounty Hunter

**Spartan, Meet Bounty Hunter**

Chief tries, unsuccessfully, to fight a flash of panic when he wakes. As soon as his eyes open and his brain starts to register stimulus, he slams his hands into the glass before him. Cryosleep has that effect on a lot of soldiers, like an unplanned nap that can take months instead of hours. Waking up in a tube doesn't help either.

"Chief! Easy, you've been out for a while."

Cortana. He spots her to the left, her holographic form produced from a console outside of his sleeping chamber. A drifting box nearly passes through her head as she taps her foot, watching him.

"Where are we?" he asks calmly, getting control of himself.

"We're still adrift on the _Dawn._ " She sounds more disappointed than anything. "Hang on, bringing your systems online now. I rewrote your suit's firmware while you were out."

Chief starts flexing his muscles, convincing them the time for sleep is over. His visor fills with an unfamiliar UI. His motion sensor and shield meter, once opaque symbols in the corner of his vision, have changed into larger transparent bars. They're now easier to see without obstructing his view: it's a welcome improvement. "You've been busy. Why did you wake me?"

"Activating the ship's gravity generators," Cortana says, ignoring the question. She types into a holographic interface only a slightly different blue than her.

The ship's PA cracks to life. "Partial system restoration. Initializing system diagnostics..."

Loose boxes and other junk crash to the floor as gravity kicks in. Chief feels his own weight start to pull him towards the bottom of the tube.

"You need to hit the manual release up above you," Cortana says with a pointed finger.

Chief's eyes go to the latch over his head, then his hands. He gives it a good tug, and the front glass gives way.

The AI smiles as he approaches. "Seems like old times."

"Ready to get back to work?" he asks. He has his own small grin hidden beneath his helmet.

"I thought you'd never ask."

She gives a small gesture towards the base her image is coming from. Chief grabs it and attaches her to his armor. Suddenly, she only appears as a face in the corner of his visor.

"We've got intrusion alerts on multiple decks above. Our best bet to figure out who's boarding us is the Observation deck, four floors up." Cortana still has the look of concern, enough that Chief can notice without any real effort.

"Any chance it's a rescue team?" Chief finds a pair of weapons beside the unoccupied sleep chambers. MA5D rifle, M6H sidearm, both loaded and with a few spare magazines he slips into his armor. Everything seems clean enough to work.

"I doubt it. The few sensors still working say one boarded alone, then the rest followed. The _Dawn's_ systems are pretty damaged: I can hardly tell anything from here."

Chief nods and pushes forward down the corridor. He keeps the rifle loose against his shoulder as he jogs. Whatever's ahead, it's best to prepare for the worst. Cortana knows to fade out of his vision so he can see what he's shooting at.

The _Forward Unto Dawn_ is in rougher shape than the last time he saw it. While the lights are still on and essentials seem to still be functioning, debris litters the ship. Out of the four hallways Chief passes, three of them are full with collapsed metal. It leaves him with only one real path to follow as he works his way toward the upper decks. He quietly hopes it'll take him where he needs to be.

"How long was I out?" he asks as he takes a staircase three steps at a time.

Cortana doesn't bother obstructing Chief's visor when she responds. "Four years, seven months, ten days."

"Someone should've found us by now," he thinks aloud. It makes him more concerned where they've ended up: if they've drifted for this long without finding any UNSC, they've ended up in the middle of nowhere.

Chief rounds a corner and finds a circular room with some kind of diagnostic console. The warning light means it's useless, even if there's no apparent damage on it. He quickly scans the area with his rifle, finding nothing else.

A transparent wall of orange energy pulses through the room, accompanied by a strange shrieking noise. His hands train his weapon on it, his mind already knowing it's pointless. It drifts through him without any noticeable effect, and then disappears past the far wall.

Chief watches the hallway it came from for anything else. "What's that?"

"Sensor scan, high intensity," Cortana says. She's on edge, but not panicked. "Doesn't match any known patterns."

"How close are we to the Observation deck?" He holds his rifle a little tighter as he moves forward. Getting pinged only makes him more anxious for answers.

"It's directly above us."

Coming into the next room, Chief's motion sensor and eyes catch something on the right. Yellow, fast, and trying to duck down a hallway. He lets out a quick burst from his rifle, all half dozen rounds missing their mark. Mentally, he lectures himself for shooting before identifying his target, and then for not even hitting it.

"That wasn't Covenant," Cortana says as her armored escort chases the stranger. "It didn't look human either."

His motion sensor says it's already through the hallway and in the next room. He follows quickly, rifle ready for it when he enters. That's the only reason he gets grazed by the orange energy ball shot at him, rather than catching it in the chest. He ducks left while firing another burst. The vaguely humanoid creature dodges by shrinking itself into a ball roughly waist height. As the bullets fly over, it rolls behind one of ship's support beams. Chief keeps moving until he finds his own cover and reloads.

He sighs in irritation. "Definitely not Covenant." The Spartan leans out of cover with his weapon ready.

The thing is standing still on the other side of the room, letting him get a good look at it as he lines up a shot. It's humanoid, wearing a kind of armor he's never seen before. Mostly gold with bright red shoulder pads and helmet, the thing is almost Spartan height. A green cannon that replaces the right hand and forearm seems to be its weapon. No part of the creature under the armor is visible, not even through the green facial visor. It's almost like a flashy imposter of his Mjolnir armor.

He pulls his trigger as the creature fires back. Instead of another orange sphere, a small missile flies across the room. This time, both of their hits land. Chief's shields take the explosion, not quite depleting, while his bullets bounce off of the thing's armor.

Neither one stays still long enough to land a second volley. He's already moving to the other side of the hallway and emptying his magazine at the thing's legs. Rather than forming into a ball again, it leaps backwards towards the wall. Its feet strike the steel, then push off towards the Spartan.

Chief switches to the pistol rather than reloading. His target only touches the floor once as it covers the thirty meters between the far wall and him. He gets off two rounds before its feet slam into his chest. It's slender legs kick damned hard.

But not hard enough. He slides back a meter, but his boots don't leave the ground. Rushing the thing, he catches it off-guard when he grapples it. Two knees hit his chest as it flails, making him grit his teeth. It tries a twist to flip him in a move almost out of a wrestling handbook. Chief leans into the spin and lands on his feet rather than his back. The thing doesn't have enough time to counter before he pins it to the wall.

He puts his pistol against the green visor, but stops just short of pulling the trigger. A rough shove into his chest tells him the thing managed to get the cannon against his ribs. His shields are useless at this range, and he doesn't like the odds of his armor taking that shot. The thing seems to be thinking the same about his pistol, because it doesn't fire either. The pair stay in their lethal stalemate for a few moments, quietly catching their breath.

"Would you mind getting that out of my face, Spartan?" it asks. Human voice, probably female, not particularly old. "Or are you going to keep shooting first, asking questions never?"

"Tough talk for someone with their back to the wall." Chief looks the armor up and down again. It's definitely a human under there, even with the ridiculous shoulder pads. The armor isn't standard issue for anything he can recognize. "Your gear's too expensive for a scavenger. Mercenary?"

"Bounty Hunter. Do you have a problem with that?"

"As long as there isn't a price on me, no. Are you alone?"

A small explosion sounds above them. The vibration isn't enough to change anyone's position, but it makes the pair look up. Neither one can read the other through their visors.

The female says with an icy calm, "No, but they're not my friends. I found your AI's distress signal and boarded a half-hour ago, looking for survivors. My guess is either they found the same message, or this scrap heap drifted into them."

"Uh, Chief," Cortana interjects, appearing in his vision. "I'm not telling you how to do your job, but I might suggest this is the wrong person to be pointing your gun at."

The Spartan grunts. And after a few seconds, he decides he agrees with her. "Where's your ship at?"

"Up. And from the sound of it, past all of the explosions."

"They'll be easier to get through if we're not shooting at each other."

"You're not wrong," she nods. Again, nothing but pure calm in her voice. "Federation Police will stand down for me, assuming that's them. If not, an extra gun will be helpful."

"As long as your ship can carry us both out of here," he says, releasing her and lowering the pistol. The questions he has, like what are the Federation Police, can wait for now.

She steps away from the wall, then does a quick check of her armor. There doesn't seem to be any damage. "What's your tag, Spartan?"

"117. Master Chief works too."

"You UNSC and your ranks," she quietly scoffs. "Samus."

He nods, feeding a fresh magazine into his rifle. "Ready?"

"Depends. Your AI have a map for us to follow?"

Cortana appears again in the visor, nodding. "One from when the _Dawn_ was intact. Assuming there aren't many more explosions, we should be able to make good time."

Chief nods to both of his companions. "As long as you can keep up."

"Then lead the way, Chief."

He takes point, leading at a fast walk with his rifle ready. Samus stays at his 8 o'clock and distant enough to avoid bunching up. They work through the hallways quickly, not encountering anything, but thoroughly checking regardless. The explosions seem to be getting closer.

"There's an elevator shaft up ahead," Cortana says to Chief, marking the door at the end of their hallway with a hologram in his visor. "It should take you up to Observation."

"Right." As the trio reaches it, he slings the rifle over his shoulder. He looks to the Bounty Hunter while digging his fingers between the panels. "Can you climb with one hand?"

She faces the hallway they came from, arm cannon ready. "Almost as well as I can shoot."

"Be careful, Chief!" the AI shouts about a second too late.

He pries the doors apart, and the oxygen from the corridor tries sucking them into the shaft. The gust is manageable: the flying debris is not. Massive chunks of metal and storage containers slam into both humans with more than enough force to knock them in.

Chief and Samus both crash into the wall on the opposite side of the shaft. He finds his grip a little faster than her, but she barely falls a meter before clinging to a ledge.

"Because some areas might have lost pressure!" Cortana finishes.

"Right..." he grumbles. Against the buffeting wind, he gets both hands hooked into a protruding panel. "You alright down there?"

"I'll be better when you quit trying to get me killed. How many floors up are we going?" she asks. Her tone is best described as, 'mildly irritated.'

"Three." As he says that, Cortana nods in his visor for confirmation.

"I'll make sure the door is open. Try not to slip while I'm gone." Using a leap similar to the one from their fight, the Bounty Hunter jumps up towards the far wall. She doesn't even have to grab the next ledge as she spins and pushes off again. It only takes her two more leaps to reach the elevator door they're looking for.

"At least she doesn't need a babysitter," Cortana comments before disappearing from his view.

The Spartan continues working his way towards his objective, using small ledges in the wall for handholds. He has to get a little creative to keep climbing up, as well as to dodge the debris still coming his way. But much larger has tried to stop him before, without success.

Samus, meanwhile, is trying to use her cannon to get the exit open. With her hand holding her up, her options are limited. Chief is only one floor below her when she gives a surprised yelp and the door gives in. The blue flash of an energy sword sails past her head. She quickly points her cannon and fires. Roaring answers the shot.

He puts more speed into his climb as she scrambles out of the shaft. There's another small roar before an Elite Covenant flies in. Chief ducks his head while it bounces off the walls, falling down with the rest of the junk.

A moment later, his hands find the bottom of the elevator door. Samus offers to pull him up, and Chief ignores it. He pushes a button on the wall, closing the shaft behind him.

"I thought we had a truce with the Covenant," Chief says while returning his rifle to his grip.

"A lot can change in four years," is all Cortana has to offer.

Samus doesn't do much better with a shrug. "The Federation left the Covenant to the UNSC. They weren't picking another fight when they were still dealing with the Pirates."

Sighing and wondering exactly how complicated things got while he was asleep, he takes point again as they move down the hallway. The AI gives him another way point, leading him towards Observation while Samus follows silently.

Thankfully, the room they're looking for isn't much further. The mostly open area has a raised control platform in the center and minimal furniture. Chief's eyes and motion sensors quickly spot at least a half-dozen Grunts wandering around the ground level, while a single Elite is arguing with the controls. None of them have looked their way yet.

"I'll take the Elite, then help you finish the little ones," he says quietly, already training his rifle on his target.

Samus takes it as an invitation to cut loose. One of her missiles flies at a cluster of short aliens on the left while she charges those on the other side. When the explosion alerts them, Chief is already rushing the Elite with a hail of rifle fire. Its shields eat the first half of his magazine as it turns towards him, but is cut down by the remaining rounds before it can fight back.

The Spartan takes his position on the elevated platform, and starts shooting at the targets below. He only has to kill one, with Samus' energy shots having already vaporized the rest. It's really just target practice for the humans: when the Grunts realized how outmatched they were, they started running.

As Chief reloads his rifle, Samus prods a dead alien with her foot. She seems fascinated with the mottled brown creature. In her defense, they are odd looking with their short limbs and methane breathing tanks. "Are they always this cowardly?"

"Only when they realize they're losing. There's a reason they never fight without the bigger ones for support. They need the morale boost."

"I've heard there's some variety to the bigger ones. Any advice for those?" She wipes a bit of blood off her armor before checking the remaining bodies. This is less curiosity and more kill confirmation.

Chief collects a few spare magazines for both the pistol and the rifle. Provided the _Dawn's_ old crew left more ammo around, he shouldn't have to start using Covenant weapons. "The bigger they are, the more distance you want. That applies to everything but jackals and their shields: you'll know them when you see them. Other than that, just keep shooting until they stay down."

"Good to know," she nods.

"That console should open the blast shield on the windows," Cortana says, appearing in Chief's visor. "Let's look and see what we're up against."

He nods, then waves Samus to come up to him. She makes it in a single leap, rather than taking the stairs. He grunts under his breath. "Show off."

Cortana materializes in front of both humans as her partner overrides the blast shield. "The good news is, these Covenant aren't outfitted like standard military. It's possible we just came across a rogue salvage ship."

Samus motions like she has a comment, but stops. All three of them look out the newly opened window to see their attackers. It's not one ship, or two, or even three plainly visible. At least a half dozen cruisers are holding position around the _Dawn,_ along with several Ghosts and troop transports coming their way.

The AI's face changes to a look of concern. "Or we may have stumbled into an entire Covenant fleet."

Chief ignores that while scanning everything beyond the windows. Apart from the ton of Covenant circling and the massive damage the _Forward Unto Dawn_ has taken, the only thing of note is a unique ship. Bright red, spherical, and very reminiscent of the Bounty Hunter's helmet. "Is that your ship?"

She points to the same craft. "That's it. It's not equipped to fight them off, but it can probably outrun them. We just need to get there before they destroy it."

The Covenant seem to take this statement as a challenge. One of the cruisers releases another salvo of fire on the _Dawn,_ tearing what's left of that section to pieces. Though the gunship remains undamaged, without its anchor, it starts drifting away.

"Ah, there's my luck kicking in," she says in the same dry, vaguely sarcastic tone. "I knew I should've gotten everything off of there."

"I guess we're going to need a new ride out of here." Chief shifts his rifle from one hand to the other, obviously thinking. "Maybe the Covenant haven't recognized at us. If we can make them, maybe they'll at least stop shooting."

A pair of troop transports, obviously attracted by the movement of the blast shield, come over to investigate. The bright purple ships hover in front of the glass before flanking the room on either side.

Cortana shakes her head. "That's one possibility."

Both of the transports produce large tubes from their cargo bays. They crash through windows on either side of the room, sucking out most of the air before the shields kick in.

"The ground troops aren't going to listen to us, are they?" Samus asks, aiming her cannon at the boarding tube on her right.

The AI disappears as Chief puts his back to the Bounty Hunter's, facing his own targets. "Unless it comes from their leadership, they won't care."

"So keep shooting until we find someone in charge or a ride out of here." She nods seemingly to herself. "Simple enough."

"Does our deal still stand then?" the Spartan asks.

The first few troops come through both of their tubes as a coordinated strike. A frag grenade from Chief tears his enemies to pieces, while a pair of missiles vaporize Samus' targets. The quick deaths of their teammates makes the remaining boarding party pause.

The Bounty Hunter nods. "As long as you don't shoot at me again."

* * *

A brief message from the author:

First, to the guest who left me the longer review for this piece, thank you. That is the kind of feedback I value, a valid criticism that offers advice on something I should change, rather than a blanket "I love/hate it." Comments like this are always appreciated, and I'm thanking you here because I can't PM you to do so. But thank you for the constructive feedback.

Second, the edits I made here were just the quick corrections about Chief being referred to as a Marine. When I was commissioned for this piece, I clearly missed that bit in my research of Halo's and Metroid's lore. My bad, it's been fixed. I'll try to avoid little things like that in the future.

And finally, in case it was missed in the opening description, this was a commissioned piece. The user on DeviantArt mcxh-raildex commissioned me for this, as well as the following chapters I'm actively working on. Anyone interested on something similar from me, even from other fandoms/genres, may message me and we can discuss it. I'd like to think my rates are fair, and I'm always looking to broaden my writing experiences with fandoms other than Dishonored and Mass Effect (even if I love them dearly.)


	2. Crash Landings

**Crash Landings**

Master Chief and his new partner barely communicate as they fight through the Covenant, trusting each other to carry their own weight. It only takes two quick skirmishes for the pair to get a feel for how they fight, and then to start silently coordinating their assault. It makes each battle a little safer and a lot shorter as their combined firepower obliterates the boarding parties.

Samus reminds him, more than he'd like to admit, of Kelly-087 with her speed. The Bounty Hunter is never standing still, always running at odd angles to keep them from getting a bead on her while she fires her cannon. And she rarely misses, no matter what kind of odd beam or missile comes out of her arm. He's thankful they're on the same side, but he keeps an eye on her for weaknesses, just in case she decides to back out of their deal.

They move quickly as they work their way towards the manual controls of the _Dawn's_ weapons. Cortana tracks and updates Chief on a cruiser en route to destroy their ship, pushing him to sprint whenever he's not getting shot at. Samus keeps pace a few meters behind and trusts the Spartan to follow his AI's directions.

Eventually, they reach the outer hull and the missile controls. The console they need is on the exterior of the ship, surrounded by more Covenant looking for a way in. The cruiser they were warned about casts a shadow over their charge for the control panel. But that pales in comparison to the biggest surprise waiting for them.

"I'm sorry, did I miss orbiting a Forerunner planet at some point?" the AI asks as her Spartan kicks a grunt off his ship.

"One thing at a time," he says bluntly. He grabs a plasma pistol hovering in the vacuum and uses it to quickly kill a Jackal with its back turned.

Samus makes another zigzag as she kills two more Covenant with missiles. "Deal with the cruiser. I'll draw their fire," she quickly orders before dashing at a cluster of grunts.

Chief obeys and sprints towards the nav point in his visor. Up the platform and through another Elite he riddles with bullets, he finds what he's looking for in seconds. Three quick button presses set the launch sequence in action. He looks up to the cruiser, making sure it's still in clear view of the missile tube. As long as it doesn't suddenly try to escape, it's coming down.

And, for the briefest second, the Spartan looks to the planet behind the fleet. It's a metal construct, just like the Halo ring he landed on what seems like aeons ago. This looks smaller at least, but there's something instinctively unsettling about a synthetic planet. He quietly hopes the only similarity it shares with the Halo array is the creator.

"Great, the blast door's jammed!" Cortana shouts in his ear. "The missile won't fire until it's cleared."

Samus is less than ten meters from the jam but is busy with at least three Elites. Chief yells at himself for not syncing his communicator with her already, then sets out to deal with it. Linking radios with the Bounty Hunter will have to wait until they're not getting shot at.

The Spartan uses the low gravity to cover as much distance as possible when he leaps from the platform. His controlled battle rifle fire kills three more Covenant before he hits the hull running. He shoulders a grunt to the side, still charging towards the blast door. A quick check on Samus reveals her standing atop a dead Elite while shooting at others. He assumes she has it under control.

Chief reaches the blast door and quickly kicks it out of the way. Cortana cheers as the missile leaves the silo, locks onto the cruiser, and crashes into its side. Almost instantly, the massive ship breaks into a few thousand pieces.

The Spartan turns with his rifle raised, ready to assist Samus in cleaning up stragglers. But once again, she proves herself plenty capable and has already taken them out. She notices his look and jogs towards him. He lowers his rifle, looking back to the remainder of the Covenant fleet circling their ship. They still have a long day ahead of them.

Suddenly, a small eye opens on the Forerunner planet. It releases an orange beam like the one he saw before. But this one scans only his suit specifically.

"Chief..." Cortana says worriedly.

The fact the beam isn't hurting him or his armor doesn't make him feel any better: he hates being the center of things he doesn't understand. "The Covenant weren't the ones scanning us."

A moment later, the beam disappears, and the planet begins to open. Over half of the side facing them changes from sheer steel to a gravity well in seconds, already trying to drag the Dawn into it.

"NOW can we worry about the giant metal planet?" Cortana asks without any effort at hiding her sarcasm.

"I'd love to board an unknown ship that doesn't crash, just once," the Bounty Hunter comments wistfully. "Where are the escape pods?"

Cortana quickly gives Chief a nav point, sending him on a sprint back inside the ship with Samus right behind him. "Aft vehicle bay. Just keep moving: the _Dawn's_ hull integrity is already down to 30%."

The pair sprint through the collapsing vessel, Spartan barely leading. As the gravity well crushes the ship, the interior almost disintegrates before their eyes. Both have to regularly make leaps over pits where walkways used to be or slide under the falling ceiling. Several Covenant are still onboard, too preoccupied with their own lives to notice their fleeing enemies. The only one they bother killing is an Elite half collapsed in the middle of the hallway, which Chief ends with a quick round to the skull.

Cortana marks the vehicle bay below them as they enter an open room. Chief pauses to look for stairs, only for the floor to collapse. He stumbles while Samus slides down the falling steel. She reaches the door on the far side and pauses to cover the Spartan from the few Covenant with an angle on him. His hand pats her shoulder when he passes behind her, and she resumes following.

"Next room over, keep moving!" Cortana shouts into Chief's helmet. The AI quickly labels the path for him to follow, and he wastes no time following her directions.

The system's PA announces, "Catastrophic Depressurization," a moment after he kicks the bay door open. Both of them are sucked off their feet and into the room, clear over any handholds that have a chance of saving them. It only takes a moment for them to be dragged through a tear in the hull and to begin falling toward the gravity well.

Chief keeps his focus on survival, not panic. "Can you track any of the escape pods?" he asks Cortana.

"Negative, they're gone!" she shouts, voice plainly full of worry.

As a chunk of the Covenant cruiser they destroyed flies into their path, he spots Samus maybe twenty yards to his right. There's no outward panic on her, not yet, but her free hand is reaching for anything even remotely near her grip. She misses a piece of the _Dawn_ by inches, and while her back is turned, she bounces off a larger one.

Chief catches some debris in his chest before rebounding into a corridor from the cruiser. The difference in their speeds makes anything he manages to grab rip free without slowing him. His focus on trying to catch the next handhold keeps him as calm as the situation allows.

He spots another massive piece of metal directly in his path. As he reaches toward it, he realizes how much slower it's falling than him. He hits this one hard enough to knock him out as Cortana yells in a voice more like Dr Halsey than her own.

He wakes up slower than he did from the cryopod. It takes him several seconds to even register he's awake, as well as the fact there's a couple hundred pounds of steel on his chest. There's a vague ache to every part of his body, but nothing seems broken or more injured than anything else.

As he gets his bearings, he starts prioritizing. A weapon is the first concern and is quickly dismissed. He doesn't remember grabbing his battle rifle on the way down, but it's close enough to his hand he must have. Second, hostiles. He moves his head slowly to not alert anything that might be looking his way. Nothing seems to be alive other than him in the debris field. Satisfied, he gets his hands under the metal currently crushing him, and he throws it off. His lungs thank him instantly.

Chief stands, gripping his rifle in one hand. He does another quick check for enemies, and finding nothing, he looks over his general surroundings. It looks like he landed with the rest of the debris from the _Dawn_ and several of the destroyed Covenant ships. The amount of burning material around him says they didn't fare much better than he did.

"Where are we?" he asks Cortana.

"Checking coordinate impact data," she states plainly without appearing in his visor.

"We have asked you to give up your family," Dr Halsey's unfortunately familiar voice says in the Spartan's ear, "your childhood, your future-"

He quickly rips the AI's base from behind his helmet and holds her out. "Cortana!" He doesn't try to shout, but his concern is stronger than his social skills.

"I'm sorry, it's the crash," she apologizes, almost embarrassed. Her holographic form shimmers a little as she speaks. "I'm fine."

He remembers how he heard Halsey's voice right before he blacked out, and the small hiccups in her words during their fight with the Covenant. "Something was wrong even before we left the _Dawn._ "

"Chief, really. I'm fine." This time, the distortion in her voice is plain to hear. She sounds too robotic, for a lack of a better word.

The Spartan stands fully, looking down at his companion. "Cortana..." he presses.

She watches her hands rather than him. "I was put into service eight years ago." Her hushed voice is barely audible over the still collapsing debris around them. "AIs deteriorate after seven, Chief."

He grits his teeth under his helmet as he thinks. "Halsey," he finally says.

Cortana shakes her head. "Chief..."

"We need to find Halsey," he continues.

"Chief, please!" she shouts back at him, almost pleading.

He pauses just long enough to take a breath. His eyes never leave her form. "She made you. She can fix you."

"I won't recover from rampancy... you know that." She's gotten quiet again.

"If we can just get back to Earth and find Halsey, she can fix this." No one could hear his voice and doubt the conviction in his words, or his dedication to pulling it off.

But Cortana has small frown on her face. She locks eyes with her companion through his visor, more apologetic than confrontational. "Don't make a girl a promise you can't keep."

A trio of low flying Covenant ships pass over them, interrupting the moment. Nothing as big as a cruiser this time. "We need to move," Cortana says before disappearing.

Chief quickly attaches her to his helmet and looks for a way out of the debris field. Even if they didn't spot him then, he won't risk being out in the open twice. There's a path the direction the ships came from, which he starts jogging towards. "How many Covenant do you think made it through the roof?"

"Plenty, why?"

Chief ensures his rifle is loaded with a fresh magazine without breaking stride. "We still need a ride home."

The terrain is fine gray dirt that seems like it will blow away at any moment. A few rock faces of the same color surround the area, but there's a bit of green towards the top of the basin. All the crash landings must've turned this spot into the crater it is: he'll have to get topside to see what it's really like here. At least the atmosphere has breathable oxygen. He focuses on moving forward, as well as watching for targets.

After a few minutes of jogging and moving through a few tunnels, he finally spots movement. A fallen panel starts shaking, and he trains his rifle on the target. Chief doesn't shoot when the thing stumbles out: it's human, not Covenant.

A blonde woman slowly climbs onto her feet and dusts some of the dirt off her. Hardly armored in a blue jumpsuit and carrying only a pistol, she's more out of place among the debris than he is.

"Thanks for not shooting me this time," Samus says with a professional nod.

Chief keeps his rifle low but tight in his grip, still scanning for any other surprises. "Didn't expect you to survive. Where's your armor?"

"It burned off when I entered the atmosphere, but it's been through worse. I can fix it if I get my hands on a lot of energy, or give it a day for it to fix itself. I doubt either of us want to wait for the latter." As the Bounty Hunter talks, she stretches her legs and arms. The suit doesn't seem to hinder her movement at all, not that her full armor did either.

"We could salvage something from one of the Covenant ships."

"I've got a better idea, if you're open to it." She produces a small disk from her sleeve, almost like a data drive. "My ship probably got caught in the gravity well with everything else. We find that, I can drain enough power for my armor, and then we can get it flight worthy again."

Chief perks up at the mention of leaving. "Can your ship get us to Earth?"

"With a stop or two for fuel, probably," she says and hands over the device. "It's a locator for my gunship. It took some damage in the fall, enough to cut down its range. I'm hoping that your AI can boost the signal and tell me where it landed."

Cortana flashes across his visor and nods. The Spartan takes it and attaches it to his own forearm. His partner seems preoccupied for a moment before she smiles. "It's about a kilometer to the south. I can't access anything but the location, probably due to fall damage."

"Your ship landed a klick to the south." he announces to his human companion. "We won't know anything more until we get there."

Samus looks in the vague direction her ship is. There's something resembling a path that way, enough they can walk up rather than climb. "Then let's not waste time standing here. After we do something we should have earlier."

"Link up our radios?" Chief suggests.

She nods. "In case we need to talk over gunfire. We're lucky we didn't need that last time."

"It would've been helpful when the missile door jammed," Cortana comments.

As Samus takes her locator back from Chief, she gives him the radio frequency. The AI pairs them up and sends a quick test ping.

"You can turn the volume down," Samus says, tapping her ear. "Cochlear implant: I'll hear you over everything. How about you?"

"It's in the helmet with an external noise filter," Chief explains.

"And the same goes for the microphone, probably right above the oxygen intake?" When he doesn't respond, she continues. "I always forget how far the UNSC is behind the Federation. Mine is a part of my vocal chords. You'll hear me before I even finish saying it."

The Spartan won't admit how useful that would be, and instead starts walking up the southern ramp. Samus follows closely behind, pistol ready but low at her hip.

"You can admit you're jealous, Chief," Cortana chuckles into his helmet.

He only grunts, then starts into a steady ten miles-per-hour jog. Samus doesn't seem to have any problems keeping up.

Cortana makes her base light up out of courtesy as she starts talking to the Bounty Hunter. "So how will energy from your ship fix your armor if it's gone?"

"My Power Suit isn't like UNSC equipment: it's energy based, not material." Samus isn't even breathing heavy as she explains and runs. "It loses power with each hit it takes. It recharges fast enough that as long as I'm careful, I don't have to worry. But falling through the atmosphere burned off what I had in the reserves. And when the batteries are drained, so is the armor."

"So when you get a charge, the suit will, what, just appear around you?"

"Something like that."

"We might have trouble prying Halsey away from you if we get back to Earth," Cortana laughs. "She would love to replicate that kind of technology."

Samus shakes her head, her blonde ponytail wrapping around her neck. "She can try. No one's managed it yet."

"What about the suit's creators? Didn't they make others?"

"I don't know. They're not around to ask anymore." Something in Samus' tone makes the AI realize it's best to drop the topic.

Chief looks back toward his follower. "Having trouble keeping up?"

"You're not losing me with a jog, Spartan." If she wasn't so adamant about it, the comment would sound playful. Instead, she seems almost insulted. "And I don't need armor to hold this pace either."

He responds with his own bitter sarcasm. "No, just to keep yourself from getting shot."

"We can take yours off and see how many bullets it takes to kill you."

"Are you two going to need a referee?" Cortana asks mischievously.

The comment seems to defuse things. Samus takes a slow breath, then starts speaking again calmly. "My armor barely affected my strength or speed. It's not that fancy Mjolnir gear you Spartans are so attached to."

"So those jumps you were doing before, those were all you?" Even as he leaps over another rock, Chief's tone betrays how impressed he is.

"You can manage a lot when you spend your childhood in combat training," she says. She's still markedly less hostile than before.

He only nods.

It only takes them another minute to find the gunship. The transport made its own cave when it crashed, burying itself a half dozen meters below the surface. Chief eyes it skeptically as he peers over the ledge. "Will it even fly?"

Samus slides down the incline to the craft's door. "Not yet," she shouts, pushing away some of the loose rock blocking the entrance. "I have an automated repair protocol for a reason. It should be able to get it back in the air."

She gets her hands dug in, then pries the door partially open. Her small frame slides through the narrow gap easily. "You coming?"

He scans the area before diving down and pulling the door out enough to fit through. A bright light erupts inside the ship just as he walks in, making him draw his pistol. It dies away after a moment and reveals the fully armored Bounty Hunter.

"You could've mentioned that." He puts his weapon away and starts looking over the ship's interior.

She ignores the comment and takes a seat in the captain's chair. "Don't touch anything until I get the repairs started."

He keeps his hands to himself as he wanders the ship's small interior. She travels alone: there's nowhere else to sit, other than a bunk room with a single cot off the control center. The machinery here is more intricate than a UNSC craft, or at least looks like it with all of its extra buttons and meters. He doesn't know enough about this technology to make any guesses beyond that. For all he knows, it could just be all fancy lights.

The bulbs flicker suddenly, then turn off. Only the panels by the captain's chair seem to still have power.

"I expected worse," Samus says. "The diagnostics didn't find anything beyond saving. It will be a few hours before it's space worthy, but the repair protocol can handle it. All we can do now is wait."

Chief sticks his head back out the door of the craft and looks to the sky. "This is probably the best place to camp."

"Agreed. Are you hungry?" The Bounty Hunter removes her helmet, sets it in her chair, and digs into a cabinet in her bunk room.

"I'll live."

"Suit yourself." She returns with a strangely colored bar and black bottle in the same hand. "Never know when you'll get another chance to eat."

Chief leaves the ship and finds a suitably sized rock. He pries it from the wall, carries it inside, and uses it for a makeshift chair against a wall.

"You saved me having to offer you a seat," she chuckles. She sits down in the captain's chair and places the helmet at her feet.

Cortana waves in Chief's visor. "Hey, bring me out. If we're just sitting around, I want to ask about her armor."

He nods and reaches behind his helmet to remove her base. "Cortana wants to talk to you."

Samus gives an approving motion between bites.

The AI appears as soon as her Spartan sets her on the corner of his rock. "So you can take parts of your armor off, or make it materialize?"

"I'll make you a deal: you answer my questions about what you two were doing out here, I'll answers yours," the Bounty Hunter says, leaning forward in her chair with another cool stare. "I've been shot at enough today without knowing why."

"Deal," Cortana says without hesitation.

Chief shrugs and motions to the AI. The finer details of alien engineering aren't high on his list of interests.

Samus nods before diving into her explanation. "As long as it has energy, I can mostly make it do what I want. It's a part of me: no one else can summon it or take it off me unless I want them to."

"But is there a range to it? If it requires energy to be materialized, you should only be able to walk so far away before it disappears again. And what about someone else trying to put it on?" Cortana can barely contain her excitement as her questions rattle out. She is based off Halsey: anyone who knows her wouldn't be surprised.

"I'm not sure about a range. If I leave my helmet somewhere, summoning another destroys the first one," she says slowly, as if this is the first she's given it any serious thought. "Only one person has ever tried to put on my helmet, and it seemed to shrink so he couldn't wear it. The suit's connected to me, and I think it wants to stay that way."

"You said the original creators are all gone?"

Samus nods, her eyes drifting down slightly. "Yes. And that's all I care to say."

"I understand," Cortana says, toning down her enthusiasm. "You have your own questions?"

"To put it mildly." The Bounty Hunter washes down the last of her food with a long drink of from the bottle. "That ship was in rough shape when I found you. How did that happen?"

"We had bad luck with a slipspace portal, or that's the simple version. I don't think you'd believe the whole story if I told you." There's a mischievous smile on the AI's face, like she's baiting her companion.

"Try me," Samus challenges with a calm stare.

"We activated the self-destruct on a Halo ring while trying to escape with a slipspace portal. It sent the front half of the ship to Earth, while our half was propelled in an entirely different direction. We've been drifting ever since."

Cortana's calm retelling of the story barely fazes the Bounty Hunter. She only allows a small smile. "And I thought my luck was bad. This was what, about five years ago?"

"It was around that time."

"Then you were a part of that fighting in Africa, right? What's the name of the Arbiter who was with you?"

"Thel 'Vadam," Chief says, finally acknowledging the conversation.

Samus goes quiet for a second, her face betraying her surprise. But then she nods. "So, I really did find you, then. Not that I expected there to be a Spartan pretending to be the Master Chief, but I like to be careful."

"The UNSC released what happened with the Ark?" Cortana questions.

"Not officially, but there's plenty of rumors," the Bounty Hunter says. "The Arbiter's real name was the most concrete detail I ever heard. The story I pieced together was a fight with the Covenant and humans in Africa ended up destroying some Forerunner installation on the edge of the Milky Way, with a Spartan called Master Chief at the center of it. The same Spartan who destroyed that first Halo ring almost by himself."

"I'm glad my fame precedes me," Chief comments absently.

The AI seems a little more focused on the conversation. "But if it's all still classified, then how did you find out so much?"

"What I know is from four years' worth of rumor gathering, not counting the conspiracies that always pop up around operations like that," Samus says. She almost seems to be apologizing to Cortana. "It's still not public knowledge. But Bounty Hunters like me listen to the drunk soldiers who talk too much in bars, or the hackers who brag about what they find when they get into databases they shouldn't. It helps to know who hates who when your job almost always involves being shot at."

"It would be nice. The last we heard, the Covenant were at peace with Earth. Having them try to kill us today was a surprise," Cortana admits.

Samus shakes her head. "No, the truce is still going. I don't know why this group hates you so much. They get along with the UNSC just fine."

"Maybe Chief killed their cousins." She looks up with a grin to her Spartan friend, trying to elicit a laugh from him.

All she gets is a small grunt.

Cortana asks, "Can look at your ship? I haven't seen anything like this before."

Samus stands and nods. "As long as we can talk about Covenant weapons afterward."

"Chief, give me a hand, please?"

He stands and connects her to the back of his helmet again. As the Bounty Hunter moves the clutter away from her control console, the Chief risks a hushed conversation with his partner. "Should I be worried about how friendly the two of you are?"

"I'm allowed to have friends, you know," she grins in his visor. The smirk fades away instantly. "We're on an unknown Forerunner planet with angry Covenant forces and no way home. I figure being nice to the one person not shooting at us wouldn't be a bad thing."

"We still don't know anything about her or her group."

"Which is why I'm asking." She sighs in his ear. "She's not a threat for now. Let's not make her one before she gives us a ride home, or at least before we find out what she knows."

Samus, now with a debris free panel, is looking at the Spartan expectantly.

"Fine," he says with finality under his breath. He approaches the controls and holds Cortana out to examine it.

She materializes and asks with the same curiosity as before, "Is there any kind of AI installed?"

"I can add one," Samus says. "But I haven't had a need for one yet."

"Not with the automated protocols already loaded in, I assume."

"There's a few programs installed for different functions. They're helpful when I use them."

Cortana nods. "So what kind of propulsion system does this ship use?"

* * *

So I forgot to upload this into the document manager until a week after I finished it. And then forgot to finish posting this chapter until I went to upload chapter 3... my bad. So enjoy a small spam of chapters! I'll try not to make that stupid mistake again!

Anyway, chapter 2 of the commissioned work from MCHX over at Deviant Art. I hope you all enjoy, because they already have me working on the next chapter. So there's more where this came from! ~MGA


	3. Mixed Signals

**Mixed Signals**

Over the next hour, Samus fields an endless stream of questions from the AI. Everything from the interface of her ship's controls to the complexity of its VI protocols gets brought up at one point or another. She's no engineer, but she knows enough to always answer with more than, "I just know it works." Cortana holds up her end of the bargain and gives plenty of declassified information about the Covenant and the Forerunners. The Bounty Hunter mentally organizes it all into three categories: what will help in a fight, what might come in handy elsewhere, and what is above her pay grade.

Chief is little more than a pair of legs for his digital partner. He only adds a dozen words to the conversation, and his body language spells out his apathy. The few times he walks around the ship without Cortana, Samus positions herself to have a clear line of sight on him. She trusts the Spartan only a little further than she can throw him. She figures they're both professionals, so neither of them are expecting a betrayal, but both know being ready for one is smart.

As Samus tries to start her ship's defenses for a demonstration, the radio comes alive with static. "Did your equipment pick that up?" she asks, walking over to the radio.

"We got it too," Cortana says. "I don't think it's Covenant. The pattern's different."

"Can you clean it up?" Chief asks, looking to his partner.

She pauses. "I can try... But I'm reading some kind of Forerunner structure not far from here. It could help us find where the signal's coming from."

"Do you think we'll find a map there?" the Bounty Hunter questions.

"Probably."

Samus nods and checks the console of her ship again. "We won't be flight ready for a few hours. We have the time."

"Is that structure the same direction as the Covenant we saw?" the Spartan asks.

"Yep." Cortana seems oddly chipper about that fact. "Maybe we can ask to borrow one of their ships."

"Asking isn't my strong suit," Chief snarks. "Can we find our way back if we leave?"

"I prioritized fixing the ship's transmitter and my receiver. We should be able to follow the signal from anywhere on the planet," Samus reassures.

"Then let's go." He connects his virtual partner back to his armor and shoulders his rifle.

His human partner gestures to the door after putting her helmet on. "You're the one with the GPS."

The trio climb out of the craft and settle into a jog along the edge of the _Dawn's_ massive crater. It's up top that they get their first good look at the planet's terrain. It's a thin forest with trees separated by other green flora that wouldn't look out of place on Earth. The cliffs and rock faces fit the aesthetic surprisingly well, just like the silhouettes of Forerunner structures in the distance. Samus silently muses she's been stranded in uglier places.

It's an uneventful run until they find another portion of the _Dawn_ in their path: a vehicle bay, luckily holding several intact Warthogs. The Spartan takes the wheel while she rides shotgun with her cannon ready. They don't encounter anything hostile on the path Cortana guides them down, but they have to abandon the vehicle in a narrow tunnel a klick from their destination.

They finally find Covenant at the structure's entrance, too busy investigating to notice their approach. It takes the humans less than two minutes to deal with the squad. Their only surprise, a cloaked Elite trying to ambush Chief with an energy sword, still goes down without landing any of its strikes. The good news is Samus finds the alien's camouflage module attaches to her armor with ease. She promises Chief he'll get the next one. He only nods.

Inside the structure, several flying Forerunner Sentinels ignore them and work on the structure's ceiling. The Bounty Hunter watches the drones cautiously as they cross the large chamber and approach the control console. Chief follows Cortana's orders and plugs her in to explore the systems.

"It's a localized site cartographer," she says aloud for both of her partners. "In service of Forerunner shield world 'Requiem.'"

"At least we know where we are now," Chief comments.

"Let's see if it can tell us what the Covenant are so interest-"

The signal from before comes across their radios again and interrupts her. There's a few words to it this time, buried in the white noise. The only things Samus catches out of it are, "Infinity" and a set of numbers.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!" Cortana shouts across the shared radio. "UNSC AI Cortana to _Infinity,_ please respond!"

A few more garbled syllables come across the air, but there's no change in the tone. The AI growls and fights the holograms briefly, flashing through several screens until it settles on one of Requiem covered in pulsing red circles.

"The cartographer keeps acting like the transmission is coming from everywhere on the planet at once. It doesn't want to triangulate the _Infinity's_ signal," Cortana says irritatedly. She battles against the system for a few more seconds before the interface shows a red sphere in the center of the planet. "Oh, wait... I got it."

Chief shakes his head. "That can't be right. Scan again."

"We've already passed through one layer of the planet's surface. It's not crazy to think someone else made it deeper inside. Let me see if I can figure out a way to reach these coordinates that doesn't involve us digging a really big hole."

After some more scrounging around the cyber world, she brings up a map. "There's a Terminus at the far side of this complex. We can portal to the planet's core from there."

"Did you find anything about the planet's purpose?" Samus asks.

Cortana quickly browses a few more files and frowns. "No. Why, what are you thinking?"

"The Forerunners built it for a reason," the Bounty Hunter says slowly as she remembers their earlier talk about the species. "And considering what those Halo rings could do, I don't like the idea of fumbling around in here blindly."

Chief pauses, considering her words. "If _Infinity_ followed our distress call into Requiem, they'll run into Covenant trying to find us. We can't let that happen."

Samus nods. "Agreed. How big is that ship?"

"She was supposed to be massive, but the project was only in prototype when we left," Cortana explains.

"Then it can carry my gunship back to Earth and save me the trouble of driving."

"Let's get to _Infinity_." Chief connects his partner back to his helmet and leads them out the back door.

Cortana guides them through the structure's corridors until they come to a bridge over a large chasm. They spot a Phantom as it flies out of the ravine and drops off more Covenant that join the squads already patrolling the bridge.

"Can your cannon can bring down the Phantom?" Chief asks.

She nods, looking to the circling craft and all of the cover the bridge provides for ground troops. "It might take a minute, but I can manage."

"Do it. I'll keep the others busy."

Without another word, he leaps over the platform and down onto the bridge.

"Would it have killed you to use the elevator?" Cortana complains over the radio.

Samus fires three homing missiles at the Phantom as the Spartan rushes the ground troops. It gets knocked to the side by the impacts, but stays aloft. She follows it up with a cluster of energy shots and one more missile for good measure. The ship is scrap metal before it can fire back.

She sprints to the edge of the elevator and observes the carnage below. Chief is pushing forward in diagonals, only taking cover long enough to reload. The bulk of the Covenant haven't figured out where either of their attackers are yet. Samus uses her elevation to kill a distracted Jackal, and then a few Grunts trying to hide behind bridge supports.

Some of them spot her and start firing on the elevator. She shrinks down into her morph ball size and rolls off a dozen meters before it reaches its destination.

"Take the left," Chief orders over the radio as she uncoils behind cover.

Samus grunts a quick acknowledgment and pushes up her side of the bridge. The trio of Elites at the end miss their camouflaged, sprinting target. Her own shots are accurate enough to kill two of them before she gets halfway across the bridge.

Taking cover to catch her breath, she spots a pair of Grunts fleeing into her line of fire. A hail of energy rounds fly over their heads and bring down the final Elite. Samus mops up the Grunts from there.

Chief appears at the end of the bridge, sporting a Covenant rifle slung over his shoulder. "Good work on the Phantom," he acknowledges as she joins him.

Before she can say anything, Cortana comes on their radio. "The Covenant net is going crazy. They're ordering all units to converge on the Terminus Tower."

He shrugs while bending over to collect ammo from an Elite. "I guess we got their attention."

Samus picks up the plasma pistols at her feet and drains their power for her suit. "How far ahead is the Tower?"

"The entrance is on the other side of those doors," Cortana says. "And, according to their net, past plenty of entrenched Covenant."

"I'd hate to keep them waiting," the Bounty Hunter jokes plainly and heads for the exit.

Cortana's prediction doesn't disappoint. A squad's worth of aliens are waiting for them mere meters from their door. This group had time to dig in better than the last ones, with a pair of Ghosts and a turret ready to defend the courtyard in front of the Tower. But they don't stand a chance when Chief hijacks one of the vehicles and begins running them over.

Getting past the rest of them takes longer. The only way inside the massive Tower is up multiple narrow stairwells, each one full of Covenant. Samus decides her camouflage is their best advantage. As they come across the first batch, she cloaks and dashes behind the defenders. The combined fire from her and Chief pincers them with no cover or escape. Without being told, he starts attacking more recklessly, giving Samus a distraction to move behind the next squad of defenders. They rinse and repeat this pattern through several dozen soldiers with minimal hassle.

Once inside the tower, they find a large corridor full of docking stations for the Forerunner Sentinels. Cortana guides them further inside to an elevator that should take them up to the Terminus. None of the flying bots seem to mind the human intruders as they ride to the top.

Waiting for them is another long hallway. A narrow bridge leads to some kind of terminal, with several small platforms on either side. Chief is more relaxed than Samus with her aimed cannon as they approach the console, but his rifle never leaves his grip.

He plugs Cortana into the controls. As she starts to work at the UI, the Forerunner tech around them moves and adjusts to their presence. Samus watches all of them cautiously.

"According to the cathedral..." Cortana says without looking to her partners, "this Terminus is just one node of a larger transit grid that spans the entire planet."

"The Forerunners didn't want to walk everywhere," Samus jests.

Cortana makes a confused face rather than responding.

Chief steps towards her. "What is it?"

"When I tried to access the outlet closest to _Infinity's_ transmissions, the system responded with the Forerunner symbol for 'Reclaimer.'"

The AI creates the hologram above her head. To Samus, it looks like a child's drawing of a dandelion with leaves on the stalk.

"Humanity..." the Spartan says slowly. "That's got to be _Infinity._ Can you get us to those coordinates?"

She nods. "Let me try to open a portal."

A moment later, the tech throughout the room comes alive. The platforms they had passed are slowly rising to different heights.

Samus trains her cannon on the nearest one. Her radar flashes a warning across her visor. "I'm picking up unknown energy signatures," she states professionally.

"Where?"

Cortana groans. "Me too. This can't be right..."

Humanoids start appearing on the nearest platforms. They look like Forerunner tech, each with one bright orange arm and mostly blue bodies. There's a half dozen of them in seconds.

"We need to leave. Now." Samus is locked into a staring contest with one as she backs toward Chief. All it does is growl at her.

The AI silently keeps fighting the console.

"Cortana, give us a waypoint out of the tower," Chief orders as he aims at the one next to Samus'.

A portal opens at the far edge of their platform. Surprise flashes across Cortana's face. "How did- Quick, in there!"

Chief steps to the console and grabs her data chip. A creature appears on a platform almost on top of theirs. He trains his rifle on it, only for the thing to disappear in a flash of blue light. The Spartan hesitates.

"Go!" Samus rams her shoulder into his back, pushing him towards the portal.

He shakes off the surprise and joins her sprint to safety. None of the creatures follow or shoot at them.

A moment later, they land in another hallway of some Forerunner structure. Both of them look over the small room with weapons raised, but find nothing.

"What were those things?" Chief asks through a slow breath, steadying himself. Samus silently does something similar.

"Some sort of advanced defense AI," Cortana speculates. "Related to the Sentinels, most likely, but it's hard to say without a closer look."

"Let's figure out where the portal dropped us first," Samus suggests, pushing forward.

Chief follows closely behind. In the next room, they find another long bridge with a console at the end. Well beyond that, though, is a giant purple orb that looks to be the synthetic planet's core.

They approach the console, and Chief pulls Cortana out to interface with it.

The Bounty Hunter bluntly shares her thoughts. "Is she going to be careful this time?"

Materializing in front of the console's UI, she glares back at Samus. "I'm sorry, do you want to figure out how to work a Forerunner planet on the fly?"

"I know I can't. That's why I leave it alone, rather than poking it with a stick to find out what happens."

Chief stands up for his partner. "Samus, take it easy."

"I'd rather not get killed because your friend was more curious than she should've been," she points out bitterly. Then she takes a slow breath while turning away from her group. It's easier for her to stay calm watching the strange orb. "Cortana, I know you're the only one who can work the portals and get us back to my ship or _Infinity_ now. I would like there to be a minimal amount of aliens trying to shoot me while we help you do that. Please."

"I always try." Cortana's tone isn't as friendly as usual, but it's not openly hostile. "This is Requiem's core, but _Infinity_ is definitely not here. That satellite in the center is amplifying the ship's broadcast like a relay."

"Maybe we can use it to respond," Chief suggests as he turns to the AI.

Cortana shrugs. "Those beams coming off of it are creating the interference we've been experiencing. We'd have to take them out in order to contact the _Infinity._ "

"Can you get us there?"

"I can get us close. Hope you don't mind hoofing it a little," she says while tapping the display. A portal appears next to Samus. Chief collects Cortana again, then follows the Bounty Hunter through the gate.

The short hallway they appear in leads to a new biome that looks more like a quarry than the surface's lush jungles. It's all rock that vaguely reminds Samus of Earth's Grand Canyon through a dark purple lens. The pictures she's seen of it, at least.

They run into contacts around the first corner. More silver and blue Forerunner constructs, these shaped like wolves instead of humanoids. As soon as they see the intruders, they scramble up the steep walls and out of sight.

"Those weren't what we saw in the Tower," Samus thinks aloud. "Close, though."

"Similar cordical footprint. They're connected, alright," Cortana says.

They follow the AI's waypoint to the next clearing, where the canines ambush them a dozen strong. Samus doesn't bother with stealth this time and uses wider energy shots to counter the speed of her targets. Chief's energy sword ensures any that get close enough to strike regret it immediately. The dogs get a few bites in, but they fall without seriously scratching the humans' armor.

Before they can catch their breath, a different construct leaps from an upper ledge and pins Samus to the ground. The humanoid opens a kind of mask, revealing a blue skull that roars in her face. She doesn't flinch and fires her cannon into its chest. As it rears back, Chief kicks it in the teeth. The thing hits the ground a few meters back, quickly folds its arms in, and disappears in a flash.

"He's just a ray of sunshine, isn't he?" Cortana jokes. "From that peak under the hood, I'd say these constructs must be mimetic in nature."

"Imitative and hostile. Just what we needed," Samus says as she climbs to her feet.

"There's similar phasing at the edge of our sensors. We're about to get busy," the AI warns.

"Watch for any weapons they drop: mine will run out of energy eventually." Chief's request is surprisingly polite, enough so that Samus doesn't give him a sarcastic response.

Another pack of constructs is waiting for them around the next corner. A half-dozen wolves scramble down one wall, while a small drone circles the humanoid on the opposite side. Samus takes the canines, and discovers that a combination of cloaking, wide cannon shots, and moving keeps them off balance enough that they can't effectively fight back. Chief's fight with the bigger one proves the drone only wants to keep his partner repaired. Once he destroys that, it's just a matter of hitting the humanoid with enough plasma grenades and bullets to bring it down.

The thing emits a bright light before disintegrating, which Cortana discovers is actually a kind of data purge. All she can get out of it is the big ones are called "Promethean Knights," and everything else is "too dense" for her to make sense of. Thankfully, the Knight's rifle and ammo didn't disappear with the rest of it. Chief finds the tech foreign, but useable.

As they push on towards the pylon's base, they run into larger and larger groups of the Prometheans. They decide fighting them all will only slow them down, and instead choose to push past the defenders. The pair begin a game of leap frog as they lay down cover fire, sprint past their partner, and repeat the process across the canyon. They still kill enough enemies to leave more corpses than survivors in their wake, but it's not an extermination.

The pylon, when it finally comes into sight, is smaller than the structures they dealt with on the surface. But a shield around it, as well as plenty of Promethean defenders, ensure it won't be any easier to breach. Cortana scans and marks the three power sources to the shield for her partners to destroy. They each agree to take a generator, then to meet at the one closest to the pylon's stairwell.

Chief uses his new rifle to keep the pursuing dogs at bay as he destroys his objective and moves to the next one. The pair of Knights attacking Samus don't back down as easily, and she has to destroy them before her generator. The Spartan kills the final power source and his pursuers half of a minute before Samus can reach him. Together again, they push up the ramps into the pylon without slowing down for the Knights. They move fast enough that they reach the elevator inside without being shot at much.

Everyone catches another burst of static transmission on their radios. Being closer to the relay improves the clarity, enough that " _Forward Unto Dawn_ " and "last known location" can be picked out.

Cortana brings up a holographic map that shows the planet and a ship skirting its edge. "They're not inside Requiem at all! They're moving into orbit! And from the sound of it, they intercepted our distress beacon."

Chief quickly does the math. "The beacon was pulled into Requiem with us. If they try to follow it..."

"They'll get caught in the gravity well! I'll keep trying to warn them, you two need get that beam down," she orders as they reach the top of the pylon.

Waiting for them past the elevator room is a control panel and the source of the beam. Chief opens the access point and finds only a cylinder with a handle attached to its end. He takes a gamble and starts pulling it back towards him. The transmission from _Infinity_ slowly becomes clearer the further he extends the piston. When the tube locks into place, he slams it back inside the console, killing the beam entirely.

The radio is still full of static, but the words beneath it are understandable now. "FLEETCOM Actual, we are detecting a faint UNSC signal from somewhere near the planetary core," says the man Samus assumes is the ship's captain.

"They haven't hit the gravity well yet," Chief remarks as he picks up his rifle.

"There's still too much interference to warn them," Cortana groans. "We've got to disable the other beam before they're pulled inside like we were."

Samus eyes the portal across the room suspiciously, "Do we know where that will take us?"

"Hopefully to the other pylon?"

As the AI speculates, the Spartan jogs into it without a word. Samus shakes her head with a sigh. She ignores her better instincts to abandon her apparently suicidal partner and follows him into the portal.

She appears in the control room with the view of the planet's core again. As she looks at the remaining beam, several Covenant ships arrive from slipspace. All cruisers, all heading towards the functional pylon.

"I was wondering why _Infinity_ hadn't encountered the Covenant yet," Cortana admits.

"That can't be a coincidence they're headed towards the same pylon we are," Chief states plainly.

Samus smiles hopefully to herself. "Maybe the defenses will hate them more than they hate us." She leads him through the new portal to her left, knowing what he has in mind already.

When they come out the other side, Cortana chuckles into their radio. "Looks like the Prometheans don't want the Covenant here either. The battlenet's already lighting up with reports of resistance all around the pylon."

"I don't feel like getting between the two of them. Why don't we leave well enough alone if we can?" Samus suggests.

Chief nods. "We can't afford to waste time. Let's try to stay quiet."

That proves to be easier than expected. The portal left them in a hallway that ended on a ledge a dozen meters above the canyon floor. Covenant drop pods are pouring down and being immediately greeted by Promethean defenses. Both sides are so distracted by the other, they don't notice the cloaked humans running overhead.

On the far end of the skirmish, a lone Knight kills two Grunts trying to run it down in Ghosts. As it turns back to the other Covenant, Chief and Samus take the vehicles for themselves. She has some trouble driving with one hand, but she still keeps pace with Chief's suicidal maneuvers. They fly past another skirmish and through a tunnel that ends near the pylon's base.

Unfortunately, there's no Prometheans still standing to distract the Covenant forces here. They don't have entrenched defenses, but there are a pair of Banshees overhead and a lot of ground troops. Chief says he has an idea and asks Samus to keep the soldiers occupied. She obliges by ramming her Ghost through two Jackals and into the buildings around the pylon. Just like the last one, there's three power sources keeping the shield up. The Bounty Hunter destroys the first generator, then uses the buildings for cover as she moves to the next on foot.

She spots Chief with a stolen plasma pistol a few moments later. He fires a charged shot into the air and brings down an intact Banshee. It tries to fly again, but he's already climbing up the wing. The Elite piloting it is thrown to the ground, then vaporized by the weapons of his own craft. She silently admits the Spartan's idea was a surprisingly good one.

Samus picks up the pace and destroys the two energy sources quickly. Chief's distraction with the Banshee thins out the Covenant enough that all she has to do is make a cloaked dash up the stairway. She radios him to join her as she reaches the elevator. The Spartan makes a final strafe before flying it to bridge, attaching a grenade to the side, and hopping out at the center. The explosion turns it into a flaming roadblock to stop anyone from following them.

At the top of the structure, Cortana tries to argue with another broken transmission while Chief disables the jammer.

"UNSC _Infinity_ to survivor _Forward Unto Dawn._ We're reading a faint IFF tag near the planetary core, do you copy?"

" _Infinity_ , this is UNSC AI Cotana. Do not approach Forerunner planet! Repeat, do not approach-"

"Where is the UNSC asset?" the captain seems to ask someone else. " _Forward Unto Dawn,_ we read you, but you're breaking up. Helm, increase speed by twenty-two. Get us in there."

Cortana loudly panics. "NEGATIVE _Infinity!_ Do not approach the planet!"

"If you can read us, keep transmitting."

Chief slams the piston into the control panel, killing the beam like it did last time.

"Cortana to _Infinity,_ do you copy! Ah, the interference is gone, but your suit's transmitter's not strong enough."

Another portal has already appeared on the opposite side of the platform, Chief walking towards it. "Move us up to the relay satellite."

As he passes through it, Samus has the brief worry that these portals seem too automated and helpful for her comfort. It only lasts until she passes through it and arrives in the same central room as before. The voice is still there, but the concern takes a back seat to saving _Infinity_.

Free of the beams, the planet's core seems smaller somehow. It might just be it finally has a size reference: the Covenant cruisers swarming it.

"Why would the Covenant care about a broadcast relay? It doesn't make any sense," Cortana questions. Samus perks her ears when she notices the AI's voice sounds wrong. It's distorted or robotic, which their radios shouldn't be doing at his range.

"We'll handle them. You just find that control node," her partner says as he jogs towards a portal in the center. Samus sprints to catch him.

They appear on a platform within spitting distance of the satellite. The inside resembles a burning orange coal instead of the perfect purple sphere of the outside, something neither questions as more Covenant descend from a drop ship. Combined with Cortana's warning that _Infinity_ is minutes away from being dragged into the gravity well, moving and shooting take priority over almost anything.

Cortana marks the controls on the far side of the satellite, which is also where the Covenant-Promethean firefight is the thickest. The platforms surrounding the sphere are large enough they can stick to the side and be ignored by the warring factions. It's only at the bottlenecks that they need to quickly kill an enemy in their way or dash by in their cloaks.

On the top platform they find several Prometheans making their last stand against Covenant advanced troops. A squad of Elites and Jackals have three Knights in a stalemate, neither one able to finish the other off. Chief and Samus skirt the platform's edge and come out of their cloaks just behind the constructs. They surprise the Knights enough they each kill one before it can fight back, then quickly deal with the remaining defender.

"I'll cover," Samus says while taking up the Promethean position. The Covenant try to gain ground on her, but lose their nerve when she vaporizes a quarter of them with her cannon.

Chief rushes the control console to find it different than the ones before. They're a pair of small pillars, both with the Reclaimer symbol on top. He shoulders his rifle and quickly puts a hand on each contact.

" _Infinity!_ This is Sierra 117 of the UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn._ Do you copy?" he asks with a calm, authoritative voice.

But nothing happens on their radios. Instead, the satellite repeats the message back at them in a warbling tone.

" _Infinity!_ Do you read?" he asks again.

Samus falls back to Chief when there's a pause in the fire, cannon ready for anyone trying to join them.

Once again, the satellite parrots back his words before it slowly starts rising up to meet them. As it does, the trio notices all of the gunfire has stopped around them. The Prometheans and the Covenant have stopped trying to kill each other to watch... whatever this is.

"Chief..." Cortana says slowly. "Let go of the contacts."

He does, and draws his rifle. "Find us an exit," he orders without looking away from the sphere.

"Don't wait around on my account!"

Both of the humans dive behind the small wall to their left. A moment after they find cover, a shock wave erupts from the satellite. The sound of bodies and weapons hitting the ground is barely audible over their ringing ears. Samus and Chief risk a peek over the cover a few moments later, neither one sure what they're expecting to see.

A small platform has lowered itself from the bottom of the sphere. Kneeling on it is a humanoid different from the Prometheans. There's no clothes or armor to cover the creature's obviously mutated, muscular body. As it stands, bits of tech float to the platform and start circling the creature. They slowly attach to its body and give its body an exoskeleton similar to the constructs. The only real difference is its lights are orange rather than blue.

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal," it says. The voice isn't as deep as the satellite's mocking of Chief, but it booms clearly over the chamber.

It waves a hand over the thickest concentration of Knights. The constructs, once glowing blue around their armor, shift to match the creature's orange.

The Covenant immediately drop to their knees in a bow. "Didact!" one of the aliens shout.

"Even these beasts recognized what you were oblivious to, Humans," the thing says, turning towards Chief and Samus. "Your nobility has blinded you as ever."

They decide enough is enough and level their weapons at this "Didact." He motions at them, disintegrating their cover and locking their bodies in a painful T-pose. Neither one can resist the telepathic pull of the creature that carries them up to his face. There, they realize that he's easily a meter taller than the Spartan, and that the strange flesh on his face is as mutated as the rest of him.

"The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she?" he muses, an arrogant smile on his face. "Turning my own guardians, my own world, against me. But what hubris of her to believe she could protect her pets from me forever."

As he looks down on the Covenant, his two large fangs become more apparent. It seems effortless for him to hold the humans suspended. "But if you have not mastered even these primitives, then Man has not attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented. Time was your ally, Humans, but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners... have returned."

His gaze settles back on Chief and Samus. It only lasts a moment, before a helmet surrounds his face like the rest of his armor did. "This tomb is now yours."

With a flick of the wrist, both of them are thrown into a nearby pillar. The impact is enough to stun them both before they fall onto a lower platform. By the time they get on their feet again, the Didact is back inside his sphere.

The satellite shimmers and seems to shake for a moment.

"Slipspace rupture!" Cortana shouts at both of them. "Move, move!"

The closest cover is a pillar several meters behind them. Before they can reach it, another pulse erupts and knocks them both out.

"One of you get up! Come on, Chief, wake up!"

Samus slowly realizes the voice in her ear is the AI, and that hitting the wall hurt. She scrambles drunkenly to her feet and, spotting the Spartan a few meters in front of her, kicks him in the ribs.

He jerks his head up. "What's happening?" he asks with surprising alertness.

Chief is too heavy to pick up while she's still dazed, but she props him up enough that he can stand on his own. She barely notices they somehow fell back into the rocky layer of the planet while they were unconscious.

"That Didact, he manipulated _Infinity's_ signal to get us to release him," Cortana shouts in their ears. "Moving the satellite into slipspace destabilized the core! We have to find a portal out of here now!"

A pair of overhead Phantoms, circling wildly in the rupture's turbulence, crash into each other nearby. Several large things fall out of them on the way down, including several Ghosts.

"There's our rides!" Samus shouts, running towards the vehicles. Chief follows, not quite as coordinated as her yet.

"Plug me into her suit when you get to the Ghosts," Cortana orders.

Moments later, the Bounty Hunter is sitting in a craft with the AI installed in her free arm. Her blue face appears in her visor, cluttering up the display for several seconds.

Then Cortana nods. "Got it! I've siphoned some of your energy into the boost! It drained a lot of your armor's strength, so try not to hit anything!"

Samus rips the chip out of her suit and hands her to Chief. He plugs her back in while taking a seat in his Ghost. After a second, his shields visibly drain. He leans forward and his ride takes off like a bat out of Hell. Samus floors the throttle on her own craft, trying to keep up.

The rupture is already wreaking havoc on the terrain. Chasms begin to appear every hundred meters, with pillars of stone ripping straight out of the ground. As insult added to injury, the Covenant ships start crashing around the fleeing pair. The high flying Phantoms and Banshees are at the mercy of the vortex, and each of their collisions sends more flaming debris into their escape route. They both keep the throttle floored and nose pointed towards the waypoint given by Cortana.

This still applies when a squad of fleeing Covenant cross their path. Chief applies a little bit of creative driving and dodges all of them. Samus, controlling with only one arm, doesn't bother trying and hits the accelerator. At least three of the aliens go flying.

"Great! Emergency broadcast from _Infinity!_ " Cortana shouts before forwarding the message to both of them.

"FLEETCOM Actual, we're encountering an unidentifiable gravimetric disturbance!" the captain reports loudly but clearly. Like a man still desperately holding back his panic because he knows what happens if he lets it take over. "We are being pulled inside the Forerunner planet! Possible contact with UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn!_ Jettisoning beacons of our last known-"

"What do you want us to do about it!?" Samus yells back. The last thing she needs is someone complaining in her ear while she's driving an alien craft through a collapsing tunnel.

The terrain continues to fall apart as they keep driving for the one portal Cotrana can find. If they're not dodging the raining debris and troops, they're making wild turns around the walls collapsing around them. Samus' craft begins to ring alarms at her about the engine overheating: either they get out of here now, or her ride is going up in flames.

As a chasm opens up in front of them, the portal comes into view. Samus gives her throttle one last shove that kills the engine, but propels her clear over the newly formed ravine. Her Ghost almost bounces off the ground before skidding into the portal. Chief is somewhere behind her.

The portal throws her out on a surface plateau. Samus only gets a brief look before she realizes how close they are to the edge.

"Cliff!" she shouts, leaping out of her broken Ghost. They both slide across the dirt at breakneck speed with the vehicle barely in front. She digs her hand and feet into the ground to try gaining traction.

It somewhat works. Her Ghost flies off the cliff in a burning heap, while she barely goes over the edge. Her hand catches a stone solid enough to slow her significantly. But her momentum still pries the rock out of the plateau, destroying her last handhold.

Another Ghost misses her head by inches. As gravity starts to pull her down, a rough grip latches onto her arm. Samus lets out a relieved sigh when Chief drags her back up to safety.

"Thanks," she says in a breathless laugh, still coming down from the adrenaline.

Chief takes a few steps back from the edge of the cliff. "Don't mention it."

"Hey, look!" Cortana says.

The sound of the _Infinity_ falling through the atmosphere is more than loud enough to get their attention. A strange electricity ripples across the ship as it flies overhead.

"Mayday, mayday! We are without power and are on a collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet!" the Captain shouts over their radios.

"Track its descent," Chief orders, watching the ship fall into the distant jungle.

"Marking," the AI responds. "Impact predicted 77.8 kilometers north."

The Didact's sphere appears from behind a distant mountain range on their left. It boosts past them and towards the falling ship before it even hits the ground.

"We need to go help, don't we?" Samus asks sarcastically while looking over the same view.

The Spartan only pulls out his rifle and starts walking towards a climbable path off of the plateau.

Samus sighs and begins to follow. She jinx anything by saying it out loud.

"Uh... Chief? Look behind us," Cortana says with audible concern.

Both of the humans turn to see another ship falling out of the sky. The same odd electricity is dancing on its hull, obviously crippling the craft. Its falling in roughly the same direction as _Infinity_ , but that's where the similarities end.

"That's not a human ship," he observes. "Or Covenant."

Samus grumbles under her breath before saying, "I didn't even have to say it. I guess that just thinking it is enough now."

As the Spartan turns to his companion, the AI chirps in. "You thought what?"

"That not even my luck could make this worse." Samus points to the falling ship. "That's a Space Pirate ship. We now have three groups on this planet that hate us."

* * *

Once again, we can thank MCHX-Raildex over on DeviantArt for this chapter. They gave me the funds and the idea for this chapter, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. If the cliffhanger of the ending isn't indication enough, more crossover fun is coming in the next chapter. It couldn't all be Covenant to fight, right?

And in case I can't get anything else before the actual holiday, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and enjoy celebrating anything else you choose! ~MGA


	4. Infinity

**Infinity**

Samus doesn't speak in sentences longer than six words this time. It could be attributed to the thickening jungle they're working through as they approach _Infinity,_ but Chief can feel that's not it. She's more focused on killing the Pirates than telling him about their tactics. Cortana and he silently agree to prepare for the worst when they come across them, knowing that the Bounty Hunter is probably going to be a different person when they appear in her sights.

Samus' debrief makes the Pirates seem like a modern version of Huns without a clear Attila leading them. They're a massive group that tries to conquer anything they can, claiming planets as well as trading routes and cargo ships. They're obsessed with being the strongest faction in the galaxy by any means necessary, including genetically modifying their own bodies extensively and possibly turning the populace of captured planets into more soldiers. No one in the Federation is sure if there's one race of "original" pirates that's been converted into the variety they've been fighting for decades, or if it's a catch-all term for everyone they've turned to their side.

They're dangerous, no matter what their origins are. Most have size and strength comparable to Elites, as well as energy cannons and scythes for close range. They don't use shields, but their durable armor and bodies make up for it. They're organized, ruthless, and beyond loyal to each other: none of them will flee like the grunts do. And there is never a shortage to their numbers.

But the biggest problem is their adaptability. If they land on a planet with acidic water, half of their soldiers are modified to swim in it within a week. The Pirates always change their genetics and armor to fight best in the new environment. And they often have a few modified into quadrupeds to keep their enemies off balance in a fight. Considering this portion of the planet is a thick jungle, they'll be modified to climb trees and ambush from above sooner rather than later.

By the time they get close to _Infinity_ , the Didact's forces have already begun laying siege. His orb is hovering in front of the ship and scanning it. Chief's memory flashes back to when the same was being done to him on the _Dawn._ He finds himself slightly more anxious to kill the Didact now.

"Your ship looks intact," the Bounty Hunter comments as she watches the attack from the top of their hill.

The Spartan doesn't visibly react. "Something tells me that's only because the Didact wanted it that way."

"This is Lasky to UNSC _Infinity,_ " their radios suddenly crackle. "We're up to our necks in bad guys down here. Does anyone read?"

"This is Sierra 117 of the UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn._ We're on station, ready to assist," Chief immediately reports calmly. Samus wisely stays silent.

The soldier on the other end comes back on. "Negative copy. Sounded like you said, ' _Forward Unto Dawn_?' Come again-" Their radios die as suddenly as they came on.

"I'm going to guess you can't get back in touch with them," Samus says plainly.

"The signal's bouncing in and out," Cortana sighs.

"So, no."

Chief starts following a small path down towards the _Infinity._ "Light up their friend-or-foe tags. We're going to need something to zero in on."

Cortana does so in both of the humans' visors, using the connection she established to Samus' suit when she was plugged in. The Bounty Hunter grumbles under her breath but doesn't demand it be undone. They make their way through the jungle as quickly as it will allow. But the foliage, fog, and uneven terrain makes it a slower process than either wants it to be. Especially when they find a path made from the bodies of Lasky's fallen Marines, all eviscerated by Promethean blades.

As they approach the thickest cluster of bodies so far, yelling sounds from the other side of a thicket. Chief rushes through just in time to see the last Marine being impaled by a Knight. He gives a final defiant shout as the grenades strapped to his chest detonate, taking the construct with him. The Spartan grits his teeth a little harder, hoping there's a few more Prometheans around here for him to tear apart.

"Hey, that looks new," the AI points out, highlighting something in the puddle of human gore.

As Chief moves to examine the strange piece of tech, Samus pushes past him. She takes position just ahead and tries to look through the thick fog and jungle.

It's actually a piece of the Promethean's visor. Chief plugs it into his suit, and Cortana quickly does the necessary firmware adjustments. Everything in his vision gains a blue tint before his helmet gives off something like a sonar pulse. A virtual red circle grows around him, then highlights several humanoids at the bottom of a ravine in front of Samus.

"This must be how they're seeing through the fog," Cortana guesses. "But I don't think those are Prometheans."

"Or Covenant. Samus, targets at one o'clock." Chief already has his rifle trained on the thickest grouping of them and is moving in.

The Bounty Hunter steps forward until she's on the valley's ledge. She dodges a sudden energy blast with a side step, then leaps down at the shooter.

Two of the red outlines in his vision are in pieces before Chief can catch up on the valley floor. The swamp doesn't seem to slow her down at all as she sprints, jukes, and fires at the enemies trying to swarm her. Chief empties his magazine into two of the closest outlines, but only one falls. The survivor rushes him with a glowing blade. He ducks under the swing and slams his gun's stock into its chest. It hisses once before he puts the rifle butt through its head.

Another Pirate, this one more like a frog than a human, leaps at him from the trees. Before he can swap his magazine, it explodes. Chief quickly finishes reloading through the raining organic matter, then uses his visor's scanner to find a new target. There's only one thing still standing: Samus.

He looks around at her handiwork. There were two more than he expected and judging by the lack of new scratches on her armor, that didn't slow her down. Chief keeps his sarcasm to himself and simply says, "Assuming these are your Pirates?"

She nods before draining energy from one of the dead's weapons. "This is a small squad. The Prometheans probably thinned their numbers before we found them."

"Will the rest of them fight like this?" he asks, examining the one he beat to death. It reminds him of a tall crab, especially with its weaponized pincers. One is a plasma cannon like Samus', while the other is a cutting energy weapon. The outer shell looks as durable as standard UNSC armor and roughly the same color as the swamp. There's an absurd amount of muscle underneath, especially for something hardly taller than a human. It's not what he imagined, but close to what she described.

"Mostly. But the longer they're here, the more they'll adapt. It won't be long until they can see through the fog and maneuver around these trees like natives."

"Huh..." Cortana comments to Chief. A few diagrams and scans of the creature's body flash across his visor. "I need to get a proper reference of one of these Pirates to tell how much of it is natural or synthetic. I can't tell from the scan, which is unusual. They must be really good at modifying themselves."

"Remind me to capture one alive so we can ask it," he jokes dryly before looking to Samus. "Let's keep following the friend-or-foe tags. Lasky can't be much further ahead."

Cortana sets a marker on the nearest tag, and Samus takes point. The Spartan follows, activating his visor every few meters to scan for hostiles. The IFF is on the far side of another small swamp, next to another dead marine. As they approach, Samus spots movement just ahead in a clearing. Chief quickly grabs the tag and activates it while following. The body's not Lasky's, but the timestamp shows they didn't miss him by more than a few minutes.

Samus is rushing another batch of Pirates before they realize she's there or warning the Spartan. He takes a DMR from the fallen soldier and provides cover fire on the leaping ones up above. She's a barely recognizable blur in the firefight, but she kills anything she aims at almost before it can shoot back.

Chief takes his time to watch the Pirates as he fires on them. They don't move like the Covenant, the Flood, or even the Prometheans. These aliens have their own maneuvers and tactics he has to adjust to. That means for now, he's killing one of them for every three Samus puts down.

The skirmish is over in less than a minute. The Bounty Hunter seems irritated she has to keep slowing down for her partner to catch up, but she doesn't say anything.

"I've got another IFF tag ahead, but as far as I can tell, we're moving into a choke point," Cortana tells them both before marking it. "This may end up as a dead end."

"You can find the next one from there if it is. Or point us toward the Pirate's ship so we can deal with this problem at the source," Samus says bitterly as Chief reaches her.

He gives her a stern look that's likely lost in his visor. "We're not leaving _Infinity_ stranded, especially if they're trapped between the Covenant and the Pirates."

"Then let's move with a purpose." She steps over her latest kill and continues towards the way point.

"I thought the aliens were supposed to be the hostile ones," Cortana says with an eye roll.

"Just keep the IFF tags lit," Chief orders. "Killing these things will keep her busy."

The humans are almost on top of each other as they move through the bottleneck. Fallen trees surround them and form a ramp leading high above the ground. Right as it opens up, a half-dozen energy blasts greet them.

Chief's shields take two hits before he gets clear of the salvo. Samus charges with her own cannon fire. Two of the frogs fall out of the tree in a burning heap, landing on the humanoid at the base. Her missile ensures none of them get back up. The Spartan presses forward while firing on one moving to a better position. He anticipates its side step and smiles as he puts two DMR rounds through the head.

The Bounty Hunter is almost on top of them, already vaporizing another. Chief realizes she's about to be in his line of fire and dashes to adjust. His shields yell as they absorb more blasts from the concealed snipers. He finds cover behind a tree trunk just as the equipment goes down. His visor pings two with an angle on him, and he brings them both down with the last of the magazine.

He swaps to his magnum. Six targets left, ignoring the one Samus just killed. A crawler leaps onto the tree above him, then dies from his magnum fire. He pushes forward while reloading. The nearest sniper has no time to prepare for the charging Spartan and dies with minimal resistance.

Another ping reveals only one left. As he aims, Samus steps directly into his path. Her cannon takes its head off with a small blue explosion. She quickly blasts the arm wielding the rifle off and drains the energy from it while moving towards the IFF.

Chief sprints across the fallen trees to catch up. At the top, they see the tag is coming from the entrance of a small Forerunner structure. It's laying in front of the sealed doors, along with several discarded weapons. It looks like someone tried to make it a defensible position.

Samus reaches it a moment before Chief does. "What was that?" he questions.

She looks away, back toward a thicker portion of the swamp. "What did it look like? I killed Pirates and kept you alive."

"You kept running into my line of fire. You used to be smart enough to avoid that."

"I won't apologize for being better at this than you are." There's almost a snarl in her voice as she turns to him. "Are we going to continue wasting time?"

He steps towards her. "Rescuing allies is wasting time? Or ensuring we have a way off of this planet?"

"Every minute they're here is a minute they get to become stronger, to accomplish whatever they came for, or to kill everyone in their path. We need to cut them off at the root before it takes more than just us to kill them." She accents every point with a finger pointed at the rough direction of the Pirate's crashed ship. Chief can almost feel her glare through the opaque visor.

"And what if you're dead because you charged into a grenade? Or if I shoot you when you jump in front of my targets again?" he growls, getting further frustrated.

"I've beaten worse odds. They'll be better if I cut the dead weight."

"Will both of you grow up!?" Cortana shouts. She proves her point by amplifying their radios to ear splitting volume.

The humans pause in surprise. She takes the moment and runs with it. "Guess what: all you're doing right now is making it easier to get shot in the back while the two of you bicker like children."

Chief takes a slow breath to settle himself. Samus steps back and visibly relaxes. Both of their visors light up as they detect the multiple IFF tags on the other side of the door.

"Now, can we behave long enough to meet Lasky and come up with a plan? Or they going to come out and see me putting a Spartan and an intergalactic bounty hunter in time out?"

Chief grits his teeth to get a better grip on his emotions. After a moment, he says, "Open the radios, let them know we're friendly."

"That we're partners," Samus grumbles. "For now."

"Thank you… This is UNSC AI Cortana with Sierra 117 and reinforcements. We're clear out here," Cortana relays calmly over the radio.

Almost instantly, the door comes open. Several Spartans rush out around them. They're fourth generation based off their armor, with only one of them lacking a helmet. That one nods to Chief, but keeps her rifle pointed in Samus' direction. "A friend of yours?"

"Friendlier than anything else on this planet," the Bounty Hunter says calmly. "Samus."

Chief only nods. "She's fine."

An officer approaches with a relieved smile. "Afraid we're gonna have to give you an IOU on that welcome home party. Tom Lasky, First Officer of the _Infinity._ Never thought I'd see you again."

The pair shake hands, and Lasky leads them inside the small structure. The unmasked Spartan orders the others to seal the door behind them. "I thought you'd be taller," she jokes while following Chief.

A marine in the corner is busy fighting with his equipment. He waves to the new arrivals. "Commander! Radio's hot!"

"Finally," Lasky sighs while taking the microphone. " _Infinity_ , this is Commander Lasky. Pelican teams are down, repeat, all birds are down. We've got numerous casualties and require immediate assistance, over."

Chief recognizes the voice on the other end, the same one he and Cortana fought so desperately to reach with the satellite. "Finally… Did you get the coordinates to that gravity well?"

"Affirmative, sir. But we're going to need a bus out of here," Lasky repeats.

"Make it happen!" the captain says and immediately hangs up.

Lasky's the most visibly shaken by the order, but the body language of everyone is clear. Not even the Spartans are happy about the lack of support from their CO.

"You were sent on a scouting run in the middle of an attack on the ship?" Cortana questions.

The officer shakes his head. "Captain Del Rio thought _Infinity_ could provide us cover and hold off the attack at the same time."

As the unmasked Spartan approaches, Lasky holds a hand up and looks at Chief. "I know, Palmer… We're going to run out of breathing room here real quick. I don't suppose you and your friend are any good at clearing LZs?"

"On occasion," Chief nods. "We'll send an all-clear once the area's secured."

"What have you encountered out there?" Samus asks. "Are they the constructs, Covenant, or Pirates?"

"Covenant and those robots were starting to harass the _Infinity_ when we left. Out here, I think it's Pirates. I didn't recognize them," Lasky explains with surprising calmness.

The Bounty Hunter nods. "Heavy hitting and energy weapons do the most damage. Your shotguns, DMRs, and anything from the Covenant are your safest bet against Pirates. The constructs are called Prometheans, and their shields are weak against their own weapons or anything rapid fire."

"Thanks. I'm sure we can talk more about that later, after we get the wounded out of here."

Chief grabs several fresh magazines for his weapons, then leads Samus out the back of the structure. All of the Spartans but Palmer join them.

Cortana scans the terrain and gives them directions toward a clearing big enough for a rescue craft to land. It's on the far side of a large cave system, and past no shortage of Pirate scouts. Spread out for recon, they aren't nearly organized enough to fight back against the squad of prepared Spartans. It's more of an extermination than a series of firefights as the humans push through.

Roughly a klick from their starting point, they come to the tunnel Cortana promises leads to an LZ. The path is so narrow they almost have to walk through in single file, begging to be ambushed. Chief finds himself quietly worrying about Cortana's deteriorating condition, if she can hold it together in situations like this, or if she's even guiding them the right way. But then the path angles up towards daylight. He relaxes some before chastising himself for doubting his partner.

A lone Knight stops at the mouth of the tunnel, waving its weaponized arm at something in front of it. The group trains their weapons on it, but no one fires as they approach silently. That's when they spot the real surprise: a group of grunts following directions from the construct.

"The Covenant are working with the Prometheans? This Didact organized them quickly," Cortana comments over the shared radio channel.

Roughly thirty meters behind the Knight, the path forks in two directions. Chief sees the right leads to an apparent ledge and takes the Spartans armed with sniper rifles that way, ordering the rest to stick with Samus. She nods and presses closer towards the Knight.

Chief's ledge gives them a decent view of the clearing and cover from the aliens below. There's at least two dozen Covenant, as well as three Knights ordering them. He lets his group settle into good firing positions, then gives a chirp over the radio.

Samus' squad riddles the Knight guarding the entrance with rounds to the back. It explodes, and then so do the nearest grunts. The squad rushes in and starts clearing out the defenders nearest to them.

The Spartans with the Master Chief give the Covenant a few moments react to their attackers. As expected, they take cover behind the few rocks the clearing offers and begin firing on Samus' group. Over half of them fall to sniper fire from Chief's soldiers before the Covenant realize how bad their mistake was. The Knights stand their ground and try ordering the panicked grunts to do the same but are quickly destroyed by the Bounty Hunter's cannon.

Just when it looks like it'll be an easy win, reinforcements arrive. A Phantom plows through the tree line to the south, dropping a dozen more Covenant under the constant human fire. Meanwhile, several more Knights teleport in at random locations, including on top of the snipers.

Samus and Chief both end up spectacularly killing their closest targets. The Spartan quickly turns a Knight into scrap by spraying its chest with a Promethean rifle and sticking a plasma grenade to the head. The Bounty Hunter dances with hers, ducking under its frantic swings while shooting off its limbs. The displays almost seem to invigorate their squads, and they tear into the invaders even faster.

A minute later, the reinforcements are just as decimated as the original defenders. The Spartans spread out across the LZ to secure it while Chief and Samus regroup at the center.

"That went better than I expected," Samus admits. "Thanks for the cover fire."

The Spartan nods. "Thanks for helping them stay alive."

"So, the Covenant and Prometheans have joined forces?"

"Looks that way," Cortana pipes in. "The Covenant worship the Forerunners: no surprise they started following a live one. I hope the Pirates don't do the same."

Samus shakes her head. "They want to be the dominant force, not partners or slaves. They'll fight the Didact as hard as we will."

"Hopefully we can use that. Cortana, tell Lasky the LZ is clear," Chief orders.

"Cortana to Lasky. Your LZ is secured," she says merrily on the shared radio channel. Her episodes of rampancy seem to be fewer and shorter now that they're away from the planet's core. Hopefully that's a good thing.

The officer comes back across the comms. "Roger that, Cortana. I'll get you the coordin-"

"Mayday, code red!" Captain Del Rio interrupts. "Hostile elements are attempting to gain entrance to the _Infinity_ bridge! All units return to _Infinity_ immediately! That's an order!" The sound of gunfire punctuates the end of the call.

Lasky comes back on. "Damn it. Chief, I'm redirecting the Spartan-IVs to rally point Alpha Sierra Foxtrot. Until we catch up, you have tactical command. Help take back that ship!"

"Yes, sir," Master Chief answers.

A Pelican air ship lands in the center of the clearing moments later. Chief is the first one on, followed by the remaining Spartans, then finally Samus.

"Were you thinking about leaving us?" Cortana asks over their radio. Her tone is evenly split between joking and seriousness.

Samus sighs. "I prefer to avoid working in large groups. I don't like relying on someone else to not make a mistake."

"You're welcome to take them on yourself while we wait here," the AI snarks pleasantly.

The UNSC members use the first few minutes of fly time to load up on fresh magazines and buckle in for the landing. Once everyone is settled, Samus clicks on the private radio between her and Chief.

"Whatever it's worth, I'm sorry for what I said. And for ignoring that we're stronger when we're working together." Her voice gives away almost no emotion, but Chief can tell she's sincere.

"Just try not to do it again," he says with a nod.

"Why do you hate them so badly?" Cortana presses. "I've never seen anyone as trained as you ignore that because they wanted to kill someone. Not without a pretty big reason."

Samus pauses for a moment. The other two can almost hear her thinking over her answer before she softly says, "I was only a child when they destroyed my colony."

Neither Chief nor Cortana speak a while. He knows that's the kind of wound that won't heal because of something a stranger says. Almost nothing he can do will even help.

Almost a minute later, the best response he can think of is, "As long as you're with us, we'll help you fight them."

The Bounty Hunter only nods. She doesn't say anything further, but she seems at least slightly more relaxed than before. He's not sure if that's real or just wishful thinking.

No one onboard has any doubts when they arrive at the _Infinity_ : it's impossible not to hear the war raging for the crashed ship. The Pelican only touches down for a dozen seconds, long enough for everyone to disembark before flying off as fast as it can.

Bullets greet the unloading soldiers like parade confetti. Dozens of other marines are pushing toward the burning ship, firing on the Covenant forces trying to breach the hull. The aliens have the numbers, but the humans have the firepower to make them work for it.

Chief and Samus begin working as a pair again, ignoring the general chaos to focus on the targets in front of them. They charge the thickest cluster of Covenant and cut the group down to size. Several Elites order their squad to deal with the particularly effective attackers. All it does is speed up the process of getting themselves mowed down.

Working their way down the crater and through the horde of Covenant, they amass a following of Spartan-IVs and marines behind them. They focus on dealing the most damage they can as fast as they can while letting their companions clean up the stragglers. It works well, and they reach the ship's hull in record time.

"117, this is Lasky," says the familiar voice on the radio. "We're touching down just north of your position. Proceed to starboard hangar 2-19, and we'll link up with you there."

"We'll see you soon," Samus acknowledges before pointing back up the crater. "Were you trained how to use one of those?"

Chief looks up to see a Scorpion tank rolling past. "Climb on the side, above the treads. I'll drive."

"I guess that's a yes," she says, following Chief as he runs to the vehicle.

He quickly climbs into the tank while it continues towards the Covenant. All he has to do is say, "move," and the marine driving takes the passenger seat. He settles into the controls while the Spartan-IVs find positions on top of the Scorpion. Cortana marks the clearest path toward Lasky's hangar, and Chief punches it that direction. He smiles to himself as he runs over a few Covenant along the way.

Samus, perched on the side of the Scorpion, uses her cannon to fire on the foot soldiers not grouping together. Chief keeps the nose pointed forward and the main gun firing on the vehicles stupid enough to charge him. The other Spartans, armed with DMRs and rocket launchers, make short work of the groups foot soldiers trying to organize an attack.

Even when the Covenant start attacking with Wraith tanks, nothing can stop the UNSC behemoth. The only thing that gives them anything resembling trouble is the Covenant troops using hovering platforms for better firing angles. But even those can't take salvos of Spartan-IV grenades and rockets for long.

They reach the hangar designated by Lasky and find two surprises. First, all but one of the doors are sealed or too damaged to open. And second, a group of Pirates are defending the remaining entrance against the Covenant.

"What are these guys doing here?" Cortana asks as Chief continues firing the cannon on non-humans.

The Bounty Hunter joins in on the extermination without moving from her seat. "They're probably trying to get control of _Infinity_ , use its weapons against us and the Covenant," she guesses.

"At least we know they aren't getting along. Cortana to Commander Lasky, the hangar bay doors are sealed tight. Repeat, the hangar is a no-go for your men."

"Roger, Cortana," he responds quickly. "We'll find another way inside and free up one of the mooring platforms. XO out."

The one free entrance is a vehicle lift large enough to carry the Scorpion inside. Chief casually drives in and is greeted by a massive squad of Pirates trying to find a way to the bridge. Everyone riding the tank dives off and uses the cargo containers for cover. Chief begins firing on the clusters of Pirates, killing at least three of them per shot. Samus and the others flank them on the sides, flushing them out of cover or shooting them outright.

The process only takes a few minutes. The smoke hasn't even cleared when Del Rio's voice comes across the radio again. "John-117, Lasky just radioed. You picked a helluva time to rejoin us."

"Sir, what's our status?" he asks while climbing out of the tank.

"That satellite took down the ship's defenses and is extracting data from the ship's mainframes as we speak."

"Can we break the connection?"

"Main point of contact's on the ship's upper hull," the Captain says as Samus rejoins the Spartan. "The fastest route is through the maintenance causeway. There's a Mantis docked inside the door. Take it: you'll need the firepower. Del Rio out."

Chief nods for Samus to follow, then walks towards the maintenance causeway. "There's no room for passengers in a Mantis."

"I'll manage. Just try not to shoot me."

As promised, there's a Warthog-sized mech waiting for them in the next hallway. Chief climbs in, ignoring the warnings from the ship about its proper usage. When the next doorway jams, Samus simply backs away from its controls and gives an "after you" wave to her partner. Cortana laughs as Chief casually blows the door to pieces with a cluster of missiles.

Samus is through the door almost before it finishes exploding. By the time the slow weaponized suit catches up, half of the Pirates at the opening are already dead. Chief finishes the group with anti-material machine gun fire while the missile launcher reloads. The path turns left up ahead, and the Bounty Hunter actually waits for her partner before charging the waiting Pirates. Two dozen separate weapons fire on them as soon as they come into sight.

The path has several turns and changes in the layout, but both soldiers fall into a rhythm. Chief stays on the lower sub-level, drawing most of their fire and controlling the crowd with explosives. Samus sticks to the side on the catwalks, quickly taking care of the snipers and foot soldiers trying to shoot the Mantis from cover. It's a good system, one that takes them all the way to the lift without complication.

After ensuring there's no Pirates left behind, they ride up to the ship's exterior. Covenant and Promethean forces rain down plasma on them the moment they reach daylight.

"At least we still have the mech," Samus says while sprinting to cover.

"The Pirates must have gotten in after the _Infinity's_ defenses were brought down, but before the Covenant could get a foothold," Cortana speculates aloud.

Chief ignores the chatter and focuses on vaporizing the invaders. A few of them brought Ghosts, but they don't last long against the Mantis' anti-material rifle. Combined with steady whittling down from the flanking Bounty Hunter, they make short work of the boarding party and press on towards the jamming devices.

The Covenant are using small towers to disable the _Infinity's_ weapon system, and the Didact's satellite is scanning the ship from a safe distance. A few meters taller than the Mantis, the trio of jammers have no obvious defenses without their solider guardians. Chief blows two of them to pieces before a squadron of Phantoms bring reinforcements. The dropships deposit almost a dozen Ghosts while bombarding the mech. Samus uses her cloak to dodge their attention and approach the final tower. Around the time Chief finishes off a third of his attackers, she destroys the jammer with a small bomb she was apparently saving for a special occasion.

"Del Rio to John-117," the Captain says over the radio. "The rate that thing's searching our systems just doubled! I think it knows what you're up to."

Cortana responds for her human partners. "The Didact's not letting go without a fight. Hold them off, and we'll see what we can do!"

"That's tough talk for the only one not helping," Samus jokes while shooting a grunt out of a Ghost. She takes the vehicle for herself and uses it to distract the ground vehicles circling Chief, freeing him to focus on the Phantoms above.

It takes them a few more minutes to wade through the Covenant, but when the last aircraft falls, no more fly in to the replace them. That only leaves the satellite still siphoning data from the mainframe.

Lasky tells them the outer guns need to have their relays reset. Samus quickly jogs to the control console and follows Cortana's instructions to get the system running again.

Del Rio comes across the radio again as the guns start warming up. "Forward MAC batteries, get that damn orb away from my ship!"

The cannons obey instantly, their massive shells slamming into the exterior of the Didact's satellite. It shudders in its flight but doesn't show any outward damage as it flees the _Infinity's_ airspace _._ The few Covenant ships still intact follow their leader in a panicked sprint.

"The Didact's retreating!" Cortana cheers.

The radios chirp on again. "Del Rio to _Infinity_ All Hands. We are in Condition Yellow, stand down. Section heads report in and begin damage assessment."

Samus collects an armful of Covenant weapons and drains them while jogging toward Chief. He steers what's left of the Mantis back toward the lift.

"Your ship's safe, for now," she says, tossing the final dead pistol. "It won't stay that way for long."

The Spartan parks the smoldering mech in the center of the elevator before climbing out. "Let's head to the bridge. We need to brief the Captain."

She nods. "Hopefully it won't take long to convince him to help us. We hurt the Pirates and the Didact pushing them back. The _Infinity_ can help us finish them off."

"We'll see what plan we come up with."

It takes them a few minutes to get all the way to the bridge. A few of the deck hands stare, but none are brave enough to question the new arrivals. The trio meet with Palmer, Lasky, and Del Rio at a holodeck on the bridge that's currently displaying a rough map of Requiem. Cortana replaces it with the more accurate diagram she got from the cartographer when she's close enough.

"So, let's start from the top, people: where the Hell did these crab things come from?" Del Rio asks plainly, staring mostly at Samus.

She gives the group a condensed version of the speech she delivered to Chief on the way to _Infinity_. They're a group of modern-day pirates from the Federation's region of space, probably here to steal Forerunner tech. They'll kill everyone that isn't them, and they need to be exterminated before they find something worthwhile.

Lasky is the most animated listening, nodding along and raising his eyebrows when he hears something he didn't expect. Del Rio and Palmer maintain their stoic demeanors that reveals nothing. At the end, the Spartan leader asks, "It's some coincidence you both landed here when we did."

Samus catches the insinuation. "I responded to the _Dawn's_ distress beacon while it was still drifting. The gravity well sucked the three of us in when we got close. I had no idea there were Pirates anywhere near this system until they crashed with you. But I'm not complaining about the opportunity to kill more of them."

"For now, let's assume it's just bad luck they're here," Del Rio says, pushing the conversation forward. "What about those robots?"

Cortana brings up an image of the Knights on the holodeck. "It's possible they're native to Requiem, or whatever counts as native for a Forerunner AI."

"We haven't seen this kind of offensive reaction from any of the other installations," the Captain says curiously. When Cortana gives him an odd look, he points to Lasky.

The XO brings up the diagram of another Forerunner installation. " _Infinity's_ mission has been to locate the remaining Halo rings and establish permanent bases to study and decommission them. Installations 3 and 5 are running, but there's been setbacks."

"The scientists got zapped digging up an artifact. All we saved were a set of glyphs that turned out to be coordinate data. I'll give you three guesses where they led us," Del Rio finishes bitterly.

A soldier hands Palmer a datapad, which she reads and immediately gives to her Captain. "Sir, Gypsy company is prepped and ready on your orders."

He nods at the same information. "Thank you, Palmer. Mr. Lasky, I want you on point and boots on the ground in sixty."

"Captain?" Chief asks questioningly, not sure what's going on.

Del Rio turns to him and starts using a distinctively authoritarian tone. "This is a first contact scenario. Priority is the free _Infinity_ from Requiem's gravity well and file a threat assessment back at FLEETCOM."

"Meaning you're running with your tail between your legs," Samus comments loudly.

Chief thinks the same thing, but silently. That proves to be the smart choice when the Captain stands up to the Bounty Hunter. "We're pulling back so we can live to fight another day. Once we have support-"

"Once you've given them time to regroup," Samus interrupts calmly, but sternly. Then she steps up to the Captain so that she towers over him. "We hurt the Pirates and the Didact when we pushed them back. By the time you get the support you're so anxious for, they'll have licked their wounds and prepared for anything you throw at them."

"Are you going to be a problem?" Del Rio almost shouts, clearly losing his composure. "Because we have a cell in the brig with your name on it."

Samus leans down toward him. "Try, coward."

Chief is almost worried she's going to hit him, but she only spins on a heel and heads for the door. The Captain grumbles to himself before facing Palmer. "If she tries anything, shoot her."

The newer generation Spartan looks to the older one when her CO walks away. Chief holds a finger up for a pause, then chases after the Bounty Hunter.

It takes longer than expected for him to catch up with her down the hallway. Even walking, she's quick.

"Clearly I'm the only one here willing to deal with the problem," she says, eyes still focused on the exit.

"Willing and able aren't the same," Chief rationalizes. "Del Riolost a lot of men today."

She faces him without warning. "He's going to lose a lot more. Anything the Pirates find here will give them an advantage we can't afford to lose. And there's no telling what the Didact will do when he gets off-world."

"And you're going to stop both of them on your own?"

"I've beaten worse odds." She starts leaving again, almost knocking over a sailor carrying supplies.

Chief grabs her arm and pulls her to a standstill. "You don't have to. If we get the _Infinity_ free, Del Rio will listen to us. Then we'll convince him to use the ship to deal with both of them."

"And when he blows us off? Again?" she growls.

Chief can almost feel her glare through her visor. He takes a gamble and says, "We'll cross that bridge if we get there. Together."

For a moment, he's concerned that anger at the Captain is going to be taken out on him. But eventually, she nods. "Fine."

* * *

ere's the latest chapter of the ongoing commissioned crossover of Halo and Metroid! Hope everyone is still appreciating this, and not just the wonderful commissioner. Everyone can thank MCHX-Raildex on DeviantArt for continuing to appreciate and fund the story.

And for anyone interested in commissioning me, whether it be a short story, a longer series like this, or editing existing work, shoot me a message here or through gvarchangelcomms at gmail (Yes, FF refusing to even allow links for emails is still only mildly irritating.)


	5. Survival of the Evolved

**Survival of the Evolved**

Master Chief's endorsement is the only reason Samus manages to board a Pelican outbound for the gravity well siege. Del Rio keeps his distance, but word has already spread through Gypsy company about her open insubordination. Even with Palmer and Chief speaking up for her, she can feel the glares hidden behind the soldiers' visors.

Their Pelican flies light: only a half-dozen men, not counting the new arrivals and pilot. Samus stays buckled into a seat while Chief stands with the Spartan-IVs and other marines. The one near her is only there because of a lack of seats.

Three minutes from the rendezvous, Del Rio appears in a hologram before the troops. He makes an obvious effort to look at everyone but Chief and Samus. "The air corridor to the gravity well is blocked by a network of particle cannons. Open the lane for _Infinity_ to move up and provide air support."

"Captain, what's Fore Recon's assessment of the terrain?" Chief questions as flatly as possible.

The suspicion from the others doesn't compare to the Captain's open disdain. "I know you've been out of the field for a while, or maybe you've been working with mercenaries too long, but this is a blowthrough op. Sending in recon would only slow us down.

"Telemetry indicates the particle cannons are being controlled from a command post southwest of our position," he continues as an image of the AA weapon appears next to him. "Roll on that target with the Mammoth and neutralize those guns. We'll meet on the other side and take out the gravity well. _Infinity_ out."

Cortana sighs in the visors of both partners. "I don't know about you, but I like a little more intel with my intel."

"At least he let the soldiers with us bring guns instead of sharp rocks," Samus grumbles quietly.

No one else speaks before the Pelican lands in a giant clearing. The new environment is a desert canyon almost comically different from the thick jungles around _Infinity's_ crash site. Everyone files out the back of the craft and does the engrained sweep for targets. Not that most of them can see around the massive vehicle Lasky brought for the mission.

The "Mammoth" is aptly named: it has a cargo hold is large enough to carry multiple Warthogs, three levels for the onboard soldiers to navigate, and wheels are taller than the Spartans. Multiple marines are already moving around it like worker bees, finishing their final preparations for the assault. The primary anti-aircraft gun on top can take down multiple Phantoms with a single shell, and the defense weapons aren't easily dismissed either.

"Well… Someone's overcompensating," Cortana jokes.

"Welcome to the party, Chief," Lasky chimes in from the controls of the Mammoth. "We've got to manually bring down a couple of the particle cannons before we can get to the command post. We're about to start rolling: climb on and grab a jet pack."

The pair quickly run in and do as suggested. They're not onboard more than six seconds before the vehicle moves underneath them. It's a surprisingly smooth ride, but it's still a military craft driving across rough terrain. Most of the troops are hanging onto something if they're not actively working. A trio of Pelicans arrive to give air support as they settle into their preferred positions. Chief takes one of the mounted guns on the right flank while Samus finds an overwatch perch atop the Mammoth's control booth.

Roughly a mile in and past a large bend in the canyon, they spot the first particle cannon. The surplus confidence they had from their extra firepower is quickly snuffed out. It's almost as large as Didact's sphere and is clearly overkill for the aircraft escorting them.

Palmer, monitoring from _Infinity's_ CIC, gives the Captain an update over the open radio. "Targeting Pelicans are in position, waiting for the Mammoth's mini-MAC to take out targets. Hey, Seven Six Six, lose some altitude!"

"Almost got it..." one of the pilots replies. The Mammoth's cannon is trying to line up with the targeting laser, but a cliff side is still in the way. "Come on, almost got it..."

Everyone hears the particle cannon warming up. Palmer's second warning comes too late: two of the ships are vaporized, and the one lucky enough to only be grazed is going down in flames.

"That's a great omen," Samus grumbles, moving to the nose of the Mammoth. "Who's going after survivors?"

Del Rio apparently heard her. "Gypsy, get to the crash site and retrieve the target designator. You've got no chance of clearing those guns out without it."

"Covenant on the ridge line! Weapons free!" Lasky orders a second before the first salvo of plasma flies over their heads.

Chief puts the mounted gun to good use on the approaching ground troops while his partner fires on the distant targets. The Mammoth's height helps them, and the marines make quick work of the ambush without having to tap the brakes.

The Pelican crashed less than a klick down the canyon, a dozen aliens already forming a defensive line in the clearing. The worst of them are coming from a Phantom actively dropping in reinforcements. Thankfully the path to reach it is flat enough to be crossed on foot.

As the Covenant vehicles try to push in, Samus leaps off the Mammoth. "Leave a Ghost intact for me," she orders as her jet pack propels her over the battlefield. Combined with her jump's momentum, she almost seems to fly over the defenders and into cover.

Chief drives the vehicles apart with his missile launcher, pushing one Ghost towards Samus' position. The grunt driving it is dead before he realizes he's flanked. She takes the vehicle and floors it towards the Pelican, running over two more along the way.

Three Warthogs loaded with Marines drive in to give her support. The Bounty Hunter disappears into the craft's remains on foot, then reappears dragging the pilot out. Chief watches her out of the corner of his eye as he suppresses the vehicles dropping from the Phantom. A Warthog driver understands Samus' waving and grabs the pilot for an evac while the others provide cover.

"I've got the laser designator," she reports from behind a boulder. "Point and shoot?"

Cortana answers, "Pretty much."

"Paint the Phantom first," Chief suggests.

Samus hits the transport with a green beam from the designator, and the Mammoth's mini-MAC blasts it into pieces. The ground troops scramble for safety before the wreckage can land on them, but they're quickly cut down by the humans.

Samus uses the jet pack to pass the marines driving back on Warthogs. She finds her perch atop the Mammoth's roof a few seconds before the rail gun finishes reloading. As soon as her designator says another shell is ready, she paints the Forerunner cannon for destruction. Even with the weapon's size, it only takes one shot for it to come down in pieces further along the canyon.

"Are we sure we need the control station?" Cortana laughs. "We can probably manage with just this thing."

Her Spartan swings the launcher at a Ghost that escaped the slaughter. His short salvo vaporizes it and, for some reason, also scrambles his visor's interface.

Cortana's voice comes into his helmet, obscured slightly by white noise. "Ah, blast it!" The icons are restored for a moment, then blur even worse. Her shouting slowly becomes just as distorted as his display. "Listen to me, damned thing! They're only Covenant! They… They don't care about you! They already replaced you!"

The interface disappears entirely, and white noise rings loudly in Chief's radio. He instantly takes cover inside the Mammoth's stairwell. "Cortana!" he almost yells. "Cortana, can you hear me?!"

Her hologram appears in the side of his vision. She looks exhausted, shaking her head and putting her hand to it. "I'm sorry..." she grumbles, not really looking back at him.

"It's OK," he replies almost automatically. It's all he can really think to say.

"No, it's not alright, John. None of this is alright!" Her eyes finally meet his, almost confrontational. But it only lasts a moment before the defeat washes over her face again. "I thought I was holding it back..."

"You are. That's why we're getting you to Halsey. Because you're strong enough to fight it until we find her."

"… I guess we'll see."

The sound of Samus' boots on the stairs warn them of her approach. Cortana quickly disappears and puts Chief's interface back up. He looks up, gritting his teeth.

"Are you two OK?" the Bounty Hunter asks. "You dove in here like we had a fire."

"We're fine." Chief nods and pushes past her, his rifle tight in his grip. "Any more Covenant?"

She follows up behind him. "Only stragglers and scouts so far. There hasn't been anything organized yet."

"It won't stay that way for long."

Thankfully, they don't come to the top of the Mammoth and find a coordinated attack underway. Several small packs of Ghosts and occasional Wraiths meet the oncoming Mammoth, only enough to slightly slow them down. The ample supply of mounted defenses and anti-tank rockets give the soldiers onboard something to do, making Samus and Chief almost excessive. Over the next few miles, two dozen Ghosts, five Wraiths, and another particle cannon are brought down by the Mammoth and its crew.

Chief watches his display carefully for any signs of Cortana's rampancy, almost more so than the battlefield. If she notices, she doesn't say anything. He thinks he spots another flicker of his HUD, but silently acknowledges he could only be seeing what he's expecting to. He's not worried about having to fight without her if it comes to that. It's how badly this rampancy seems to be hurting her. The comparison of Alzheimer's runs through his mind briefly, how they can be painfully aware that their mind is fading early on. He doesn't so much bury the thought as he does burn it from his brain.

The resistance is minimal until they get through a bottleneck. It barely opens before Lasky starts yelling about an unidentified craft at the 1 o'clock. Roughly the size of the Mammoth, the flying Covenant transport appears over a cliff side with troops pouring out of it. Samus paints it with the targeting laser, but it fires a plasma round before the mini-MAC can adjust. The entire vehicle shudders and comes to a screeching halt.

"Mammoth's hit!" Lasky yells over the radio. "Forward traction offline! Primary power controls offline!"

The Covenant are already swarming them. There's a few vehicles scattered across the horde, but it's mostly ground troops trying to get in through the bay doors.

"We're not going to last long in the open!" Cortana shouts as Chief sprints into the cargo hold. Two Elites are already inside, pinned down by Marines firing from the upper level. The Spartan takes them out with grenades and continues further in.

Several Jackals serve as walking shields in front of a squad of grunts and another Elite. Chief's assault rifle fire brings down the center shield and the alien behind it before the magazine runs dry. The Elite rushes him, barely getting clear before a rocket kills rest of the squad. Master Chief connects hard with the swing of his rife, but it barely phases his attacker. It tackles him into the wall and draws a pistol as Chief reaches for his magnum.

Neither one gets a shot off before the Elite's head explodes. Samus drops down next to them and quickly fires a missile into another oncoming wave. "You good?" she asks, positioning herself as a guard in front of him.

Chief reloads quickly. "Never better."

Samus nods before running to the nearest Warthog. "I'll drive. Get on the gun."

"She can't be any w-w-worse than you," Cortana stutters, then groans. "Don't say it. Just go."

Chief minimizes his reaction and quickly climbs in behind the mounted machine gun. Samus flies out of the cargo hold and flattens a grunt under her tires. He focuses on a cluster of Jackals trying to make another push on the Mammoth. The Warthog strafes the pack, weaving erratically to dodge the incoming fire without disrupting his aim too much. He makes short work of the attackers, then moves on to the next batch.

The ship that crippled the Mammoth comes into view again, this time picking a plateau to drop troops at. It gives the foot soldiers an elevated position to fire from as they move down, but thankfully not another clear shot from the ship itself.

Cortana scans the craft quickly, then plots a marker for the humans. "There's a grav lift into the belly of that ship. If we time it right, we should be able to ride it inside."

"I'm on it." Samus gives no other warning before she turns the vehicle hard right. It bucks hard as she runs over several Covenant and a rock barely smaller than the wheel.

"Cortana to Lasky, we're on approach to the Covenant troop transport. Hold them back so we can bring the ship down."

"Work fast," he replies tensely. "We've almost got the power going, and that ship is probably going to cripple us again the second we do."

"It won't get the chance, sir," Chief says, shooting another batch of Covenant forces.

Samus gets the Warthog up to the Covenant's plateau in record time. The troops disembarking don't have time to react before Chief's machine gun takes them down. As promised, there's a grav lift waiting to carry them into the cargo hold. It's too small for the Warthog, so they take it on foot.

The grunts, all busy moving supplies for their superiors, are cut down in seconds by the human invaders. They spread out across the hold, searching for more hostiles and a way up. Thankfully the craft isn't outrageously large: they find their exit behind a pair of Jackals preparing to drop down.

They follow the staircase up, dealing with Covenant as quickly as they come. The tight corridors put a priority on speed over accuracy. But they find it's laid out similarly to the Mammoth, with the control room near the front of the top level. Chief deals with the crew while Samus searches for a way to bring the craft down.

"This looks important," she muses at what might be the power source. The consoles of the room start blaring alarms when she blasts it with her cannon.

"That did it! Time to leave!" Cortana shouts. "There's no time to go back the way we came."

Chief sticks a grenade to one of the windows. "Then we'll make a new exit."

The explosion leaves a suitably large hole in the windshield. Samus is through it first, checking for enemies quickly before she leaps off the craft. Chief follows a second after her, racing to beat the rapidly approaching ground.

Cortana cheers as he launches them clear of the crashing ship. Her voice starts to crack again, morphing into a hybrid between mania and white noise. By the time they use their jet packs as parachutes, she's stopped speaking entirely. He says nothing and does his best not to let his face reveal anything. Cortana doesn't react enough for him to know if she noticed or not.

The ship is actively burning as it falls into the canyon, a dozen Covenant jumping out instead of dying inside. When the other two don't get on the radio, Samus does it for them. "Lasky, this is Samus. We've taken care of the Covenant ship. That should cut off their source of reinforcements."

There's an audible sigh over the radio. "Thanks, both of you. Things were a little dicey there for a minute. All hands, form up on us. Let's finish this before they regroup."

Thankfully, the Mammoth is only at the end of the next path. They climb into the cargo hold as the vehicle starts rolling again. Chief collects more ammo from the small armory as Samus recharges her suit with the fallen Covenant weapons.

They meet no real resistance as they ride further into the canyon, slowly approaching the control room. Chief breathes a little easier and guesses Samus is doing the same, based on her body language. He even takes a moment to appreciate the small waterfall as they drive over it. At least until his HUD flickers.

"Again? Really?" Cortana grumbles as she tries to clear the display up. She sounds more annoyed than worried.

Chief listens carefully to her words and voice this time, trying to get a read on her. As she growls and his display glitches, he instinctually starts to think of worst-case scenarios. He grits his teeth and shoves them back down. She'll get better when they get to Earth. Thinking anything else will only make him doubt his partner. He can't afford that.

The HUD dies entirely. Cortana appears in his visor, her voice hidden behind white noise. "Damn it! Why, why is this so hard? I should be able to do this in my sleep. Come on… yes!"

Finally, his visor returns to the way it was. He nods to her as casually as he can manage.

Cortana returns the gesture, then shakes her head with a frown. "Blast it..."

"It's OK."

"How?" she snaps back at him, her voice only slightly distorted. "How is this 'OK?' How is putting you at risk because I can't hold it together OK?"

The anger fades after a moment of silence, and she sighs. "Chief, do you even understand what Rampancy is? We don't just shut down. Our cognitive processes begin dividing exponentially according to our total knowledge base. We literally _think_ ourselves to death… Do you know how terrifying that is to feel it happening?"

"You know I won't let that happen," he responds. He almost sounds like his normal, confident self. But the slight fear and anger under it are impossible to miss.

Cortana's eyes match his in the visor, almost staring through him. "And what if it happens anyway?" she asks softly.

His hesitation is enough of an answer. Before he can say anything, she disappears again.

Chief sighs, shaking his head at himself.

The last few miles of the drive are uneventful, but surprisingly scenic as they drive along the canyon wall. Coming over the hills and seeing how massive this ecosystem is, it's easy to forget it's an artificial construct. And that there's no shortage of things that want to kill them.

They come into a narrow pass that ends in a pile of fallen rocks too convenient to be natural. Everyone onboard grips their weapons tighter and scans the empty ridge line.

"117, Lasky," the XO says over the radio. "Think this is about it for the Mammoth. We're not getting over this blockage."

Cortana shows a rough map of the terrain to her human partners. Clearly highlighted is a small path just off the one they're on. "The command post for the particle cannons is on the other side of this trench."

"Sir, we can move faster on our own," Chief suggests, already checking his rifle and heading towards the trench.

"Affirmative, 117. Watch your back: we'll find a way around and see you at the gravity well _._ "

Samus meets him at the edge of the trench, already looking down its path cautiously. "I'm not the only one thinking this is an ambush, right?"

"Is it ever not?" Cortana jokes humorlessly.

"This is the only way to the command post, trap or not," the Spartan says, quickly scanning the far end through the scope of his new sniper rifle. Nothing moving yet, but he can make out the edges of a Forerunner structure. "Stay alert."

Samus nods, taking position in front of him and moving with her cannon ready for anything.

The Covenant don't stick their heads out until the Forerunner structure is within a stone's throw. They get a small warning: the telltale flash of a Promethean Knight appearing on a ledge up above. It's just enough for them to take cover before the sniper fire reaches them.

"Called it." The Bounty Hunter punctuates her remark with a missile at the one perched directly east of her. If the explosion doesn't kill it, the fall does. "Do you have any preferences?"

Chief takes a moment with the sniper rifle to blow the head off the Knight. "Can you get to a ledge with cover fire?"

She nods, then points to an occupied perch not far ahead. "I'll take his. Keep the others busy."

"Three, two, move."

When the Spartan finishes counting, he steps out and fires on a pair of snipers. Samus sends an energy shot at her target before sprinting towards it. Only one of them is free to shoot back, and it has no chance at catching the Bounty Hunter moving at top speed.

She combines a leap and her jet pack to reach the ledge in a single hop. The sniper dodged the first shot but is quickly vaporized by the point-blank one. Chief reloads his rifle behind cover, trusting Samus to deal with the last sniper on her own. He's not disappointed.

A Knight tries to materialize in front of the Spartan as he presses forward. He empties his assault rifle into its shields, sticks a plasma grenade to its chest, and continues past without breaking stride. He's already reloaded and firing on more grunts when it explodes behind him.

Samus uses her perch for several effective moments before being pushed out by the new snipers further up the path. All it does is put her on the offensive, charging them on foot. The process of leaping onto their perches almost takes more time than killing them.

They meet up at the base of the structure and work together to clear each level of the exterior. Samus focuses on the approaching Jackals and grunts armed with grenades while the Chief uses the last of his sniper ammo to take out the ranged defenders. The Covenant drop plenty of weapons for them, keeping Chief loaded and Samus' suit charged. A couple of the Promethean attack dogs and Knights surprise them by materializing at the entrance, but they're nothing the pair can't handle.

The door into the Forerunner base is unlocked and free of defenses. Chief gives a small breath of relief as they walk in. Cortana got through the assault without another episode. Even if it doesn't mean she's getting better, at least the worst of the danger is gone. It's something.

"Cortana to _Infinity,_ we're entering the Forerunner structure," the AI reports over the radio.

The response from the ship is a mess of static and disjointed syllables.

"Why am I not surprised that our comms aren't working," Samus muses, looking around the structure's foyer. It isn't particularly large, but it's long with several doors leading deeper in. A Sentinel comes down from the ceiling, examines the humans for a moment, and then flies towards a sealed door. After a moment, it opens, but the construct stays there.

"I think it wants us to follow it," Cortana suggests.

Chief and Samus silently take her advice. When they get close, the Sentinel moves to the next door and repeats the process. It leads to an elevator, which immediately begins lowering them down into the structure.

"It's almost like the Sentinels want us to get the particle cannons offline," Cortana speculates.

"This could be a trap," Chief thinks out loud with noticeably dry humor.

"It's not like we tripped the last three," Samus grumbles. "What else can we accidentally release while we're here?"

"The Flood," the AI and Spartan say in perfect sync.

Samus nods. "There is that… Here's hoping we don't make another mistake that catastrophic."

The elevator comes to a stop deep inside the structure, the only way forward another massive hallway. One door stands open at the far end without a Sentinel to escort them. Chief and Samus stay on alert as they walk down the path, but their paranoia seems to be excessive. They pass through that hallway and around another corner, eventually coming to the apparent control room. Other than the dozen Sentinels floating about the room, the most obvious sign is the long bridge leading to some kind of control console.

"The Forerunners had a fondness for dramatic walkways, didn't they?" Samus comments.

Cortana barely seems to notice. "It certainly looks like the control room."

Chief heads down the path, casually looking at the surrounding room. The Sentinels are working feverishly to maintain the four large, rotating cylinders that flank the walkway. Samus follows a few meters behind with a calm alertness.

Cortana appears above the control panel as soon as she's plugged in. She's already busy interfacing with screens moving too fast for the humans to keep up. "The particle cannon network must use these arrays for targeting and guidance. It's an automated system so it won't technicallyallow me to redirect the cannons to fire on one another… Technically."

One screen opens up and displays each of the particle cannons. The remaining guns give the same red alert almost in time with a flick of Cortana's wrist. The whole screen flashes before changing back to a generic highlight of the planet.

Cortana smiles at her partners and gives a small bow. At the same time, the hologram changes to a dark gray without any clear reason. The Spartan tenses up, already moving to remove his partner from the console. "Cortana."

She turns to the interface and pauses. Her eyes seem to focus something beyond it. "What… Something's in here- CHIEF!"

As she recoils back, her form disappears. Chief lunges for the controls, but the console has already taken the chip away. Samus steps toward the other side of the platform, cannon aimed at a Sentinel not actively working on the cylinders.

Chief feels the console, looking for any sign of Cortana's chip or a button to bring her back. Several impossibly slow seconds of searching yield nothing. Panic starts set in when the console lowers itself into the floor.

"Shit, shit..." he mutters, trying to think of where she could be. This should be the main controls: where would something confiscated be taken? An officer's station, some kind of quarantine?

"Chief."

He turns at Samus' voice and follows her pointed finger. A light bridge has appeared in the room off the center platform, leading into a newly made tunnel in the wall.

"I don't like this," she says, scanning the room carefully.

He pushes past her and towards the bridge. "Neither do I."

Samus mutters something and quickly gets behind him. He's jogging with a clear purpose, rifle tight in his shoulder. She seems more concerned scanning for the expected ambush.

The tunnel in the wall is exactly that: a tight corridor barely large enough to walk through, with several sharp turns and no indication as to where it leads. There's a short drop at the end into a wide hallway, once again with Sentinels there to guide them. Four of them are hovering in front of the only door, with a fifth circling above them almost frantically. When the humans approach, the top construct opens the door and lets the others in.

The room is tall rather than long. There's something grand about it, something the humans instinctually feel is almost religious. It's not helped by the glowing blue beam in the center and the platform clearly built around it. There's no clear cause for the beam, and it's too bright to be a gravity lift. The Sentinels are all hovering in front of it, almost staring at the humans.

"They want us in here," Samus thinks aloud, stepping into the room. She scans it quickly, then shakes her head. "There's nothing else. Only that, whatever it is."

"Then we use it." He moves towards the beam with zero hesitation.

Samus grabs him by the shoulder. It's enough of a surprise it actually makes him stop. "Nothing I can say is going to stop you, is there."

"If Cortana's through there, I'm going." His voice is quiet, but no one could call it weak.

After a heartbeat of silence, she nods. Her features are hidden behind the opaque visor as she releases him. "Right behind you."

They both march into the beam with weapons drawn. The light blinds them in every definition of the word. They don't just see white: it overpowers every sense but their thoughts, simultaneously lifting them up and holding them still while making them deaf to the world. After a few moments, neither of them even know where they are.

This isn't helped by the first thing they see when the light fades. They seem to be on the surface again, on a platform high above the clouds. The sun here is framed by an odd Forerunner sculpture. The place is almost considered peaceful in some inexplicable, inescapable way.

A dark dot appears in the middle of the sun, growing slowly. Neither of the humans draw their weapons, but they watch it carefully.

Chief speaks when the thing is close enough to identify it as humanoid. "What are you?"

"I am what remains of the Forerunner once known as the Librarian," it says in a kind, distinctly feminine voice. "My memories were retained to assist humanity on their path to the Mantle. Though sadly, that plan is now at risk. The Didact is leaving Requiem. You must not allow it."

Samus tenses up as the Librarian gets closer. Her cannon slowly raises but stops short of pointing directly at her. "Are we sure this one is friendly?" she mutters.

The Librarian, or the imitation of her, acknowledges the question from an impressive distance. "Please, fear not. I am no ally to the Didact." She finally comes close enough to reveal her features. She's as tall as the Didact, but thinner under the excessively formal dress made more of tech than fabric. Her skin is an alien pale like her eyes, and her face only has nostrils for a nose. She's hovering using a tiny device barely large enough for her to stand on.

"What does the Didact want?" Chief asks pointedly.

"He seeks the Composer, a device which will allow him to finally contain the greatest enemy ever faced by the Forerunners. You," she explains, slowly and carefully choosing her words. "Entire systems fell before the Didact's Warrior-Servants rose to halt your aggression. And when the Didact finally exhausted the humans after a millennium, his sentence was severe. We had no way of knowing that humanity hadn't been expanding, but that they were running. And weakened from our conflict, we were no match for the parasite which pursued you."

Chief shakes his head slightly at what he's hearing. This is information someone else should be hearing, not him. Someone who knows about ancient humanity and can add this to the history books. A revelation about humanity's past is light years above his pay-grade. And there's no way he can make a scientist hear it like he is now. Something about this place or her words makes it impossible to not believe her. Coming out of his mouth, it will probably just seem crazy.

"The Didact believed he would save all life in the galaxy… at a cost," the Librarian continues. "The Composer was intended to bridge the organic and digital realms. But its results soured. The personalities fragmented, and our attempts to return them to biological states created only abominations. But the Flood only assimilated living tissue. The Composer would provide the Didact his solution… and his revenge."

"You're saying the Prometheans… they're human," the Spartan realizes aloud, despite his brain's resistance to the conclusion.

"He would've encrypted your entire race if we had not imprisoned him here. Reclaimer, when I indexed mankind for repopulation, I hid seeds from the Didact. Seeds, which would lead to certain eventualities. Your physical evolution. Your combat skin. Even your ancilla, Cortana. Both of you are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning."

Samus is the vocal doubter this time. "Assuming we believe this..." she says calmly. "Why was humanity split? Dividing us ensured we evolved differently: just look at our armor. You guaranteed that at least one of us wouldn't follow your plan."

The Librarian takes the question in stride, nodding with her words. "We wanted to be sure that humanity would reach its potential. We gave both of you the same tools, the same blueprints to follow as you grew. Our hope was that if one fell, the other would rise and take the Mantle. After our failures with the Flood and war with humanity… we did not want to risk another mistake."

"Like the one you made imprisoning the Didact instead of killing him?" Her voice isn't angry, more like she's stating an unpleasant truth.

Before the Librarian can respond, a deep voice sounds from everywhere at once. "Even in death, her meddling continues."

As the Didact's words hang in the air, several platforms rise from the clouds. Each one has a Knight on it, almost a dozen in total.

"Like I said." Samus aims her canon at one of the constructs.

The Librarian shoves her arm down. "The genesong I placed within you contains many gifts, including an immunity to the Composer. But it must be unlocked."

"How?" Chief asks quickly.

The Didact shouts something that's obstructed by the sound of Samus' missiles destroying three Knights. "Can we leave before more get here?!"

"Your evolutionary journey must be accelerated. Both of you," the Forerunner says, looking mostly towards Chief. "You can't defeat the Didact without it."

The Spartan only hesitates for a moment, then nods. "Then do it."

"And you, Reclaimer?"

Samus sees more Knights appear on their platforms. She hisses under her breath before speaking. "Fine. Get it done, quickly."

The Librarian leaves them with one final word. "Prepare."

As they seemingly come back into existence, Chief's body locks up. The same paralysis that struck him when the Didact grabbed him and a flood of pain washes over him. He closes his eyes, forcing himself to breathe through it. The Spartan augmentation surgery was worse than this. Whatever the Librarian's doing hurts but isn't enough to break him.

He falls to the ground, back in the same room he started in. It takes him two slow breaths to make himself stand again. A ghost of the pain still haunts him, but it's manageable now. As he draws his Promethean rifle, Samus screams. She doesn't land on her feet when the beam drops her: she falls on her side, seizing erratically. Chief grabs her shoulders and pins her to minimize the damage.

Her screams quickly turn into long shudders and pained groans. She stops shaking a moment later but doesn't stand up. "F-f-feels like my bones a-are on fire," she gasps weakly.

"Chief!"

He turns toward the familiar voice and spots Cortana easily. She's projecting herself from a console not ten meters away. He pauses long enough to ensure Samus isn't seizing any more, then rushes to the pedestal. "Don't disappear like that again."

"Lecture me later: we've got company." Not a second after he connects her chip to his helmet again, Prometheans start to appear in the room.

Chief returns fire, taking out the first dog before it leaps from a wall and then another as it rushes their platform. He's already moving toward Samus. She hasn't stood up yet, but she's pushed herself behind a stairway for cover.

"There's an elevator in the back," Cortana says, scanning the room. "What happened? Both of your bio readings are all over the map. Hers are..."

"I-I..." Samus tries to stand but doesn't even get to her knees before she falls again. "Come on, Aran!… I can't tell if I'm burning or freezing…"

Chief quickly fills another dog with bullets, then drives the others back with suppressing fire. "We need to go. Can you run?"

Her hand forms a fist and slams into her helmet once, twice, three times. She shakes her head with a grunt. "Yeah… Yes, I can move. Just cover me… I don't think I can run and shoot."

The Spartan lobs a grenade at the base of the platform, taking out two more of the dogs. He gets his shoulder under her and props her up. She sways a little on her feet but shouts herself into some kind of clarity.

"On three, go right." The staircase on that side has room for her to jump over the rails and continue towards the exit. They should be far enough apart for her to be ignored.

She nods. Her heavy, pained breathing is clear on the radio. "Three, two… go!"

Chief presses forward, focusing on the Knight he can see clearest. One of the canines dives into the stream of rounds, but the sacrifice only buys the Knight an extra second of life. He drops the rifle when it clicks dry and fires on the approaching dogs with his assault rifle. They scatter to the walls and columns of the room, trying to shoot back with the weapons in their mouths.

Samus clears the stairway, but stumbles when she hits the ground. She keeps clumsily running towards the end of the room as the few Prometheans not distracted by Chief try to hit her. He loses sight of her when she runs behind a column.

He focuses on killing the last of the dogs when more start materializing. He starts to reload, and Samus clicks on the radio. "I'm clear. Move."

Chief makes a sprint for the exit. The dogs aren't accurate enough to hit him at that speed, but a Knight is waiting for him at the end. When it raises an arm to shoot, a blue light makes its torso disappear. The Spartan hurdles the falling body and almost slides into the elevator. Samus is laying in the corner, her cannon still glowing from the last shot.

"Took you long enough," she chuckles through a panting groan.

The elevator activates automatically and starts carrying them up. None of the Prometheans are close enough to follow them in.

"Are you alright?" he asks, looking to both of his partners.

Samus lets out another pained sound but manages to slowly climb to her feet. "I'll live, I think… You and Cortana?"

"I'm fine," the AI responds, her voice cracking on the last word. She coughs dramatically before speaking again. "I'm more concerned about you two. Both of your bio readings are going crazy."

"It's a long story, but I know what the Didact's after," Chief says calmly, breathing through another surge of a headache. It's easier to ignore when he's getting shot at, ironically enough.

"The Composer, I know: The Librarian filled me in when she snatched me from the system," Cortana says. "What I don't know is what she did to you."

"According to her, she forced our bodies to evolve a few millennia. Apparently, it hurts a lot worse if your DNA isn't completely human." Samus leans her head back, panting slightly.

Cortana appears in her visor, seemingly examining her face before nodding. "OK, we can talk about _that_ later." She gives the humans a waypoint at the end of the hallway the elevator stops at. "Let's get rid of the gravity well first."

Chief takes point as they enter the hallway. Samus follows, noticeably closer than usual, but also a lot more stable than she was. Through the door at the far end, they find another portal. Cortana scans it and promises it leads to roughly where they left the surface, give or take a dozen klicks. Lacking a better way out, they both hope for the best and walk into it.

The humans haven't even adjusted to the daylight before they're ducking under bullets. They blink several times and see they've landed in the middle of a battle between the UNSC and Covenant.

"I'm reading Sierra One One Seven on-sensor!" a human proclaims on the radio. "Glad to see the Chief's joined us again!"

Samus scoffs, climbing onto her knees with her cannon ready. They're on the edge of a canyon path again, next to a war of small vehicles. She aims at the nearest Ghost and vaporizes it. "It must be nice to have a fan club."

"If she's making jokes, she feels better, right?" Cortana jests through static.

Del Rio, only slightly panicking in his orders, comes on the radio. " _Infinity_ to One One Seven, help Gypsy finish this. We can't take this beating for much longer."

"Can _Infinity_ get target lock on the gravity well?" Chief moves to a flipped Warthog and turns it upright. The roll cage kept everything intact, thankfully.

"Not with the amount of air traffic we're seeing up here. Get line of sight and paint it with a laser designator, now!"

Samus joins Chief in the cab a second before he floors the engine. She waves a laser designator before him, firing her cannon at an Elite they pass. "The last passenger forgot this. At least we don't have to find another one."

After about the fourth alien gets crushed under Chief's tires, the Covenant ground troops start hugging the walls and letting the vehicles duke it out. Samus keeps them off their back, hanging out the cab and firing on anything pursuing them. The gravity well is large enough that Chief can keep heading towards it without Cortana's navigational assistance. Not that she doesn't help by finding shortcuts for him to take. The other Marines try to keep up, but the Covenant bog them down enough they're consistently a hundred meters behind.

When they drive to the edge of a clearing, they can clearly see the base of the gravity well. Considering the size of it, it's no wonder it brought down all of the ships it did today.

Samus unceremoniously lights it up with the laser.

"Target it painted, _Infinity,_ " Cortana reports over the radio.

Del Rio laughs victoriously. "Target locked! Firing!"

As the _Infinity_ comes in, a massive canon is fired from its underside. Chief walks around the Warthog just in time to see it take the gravity well out in a single, fire-filled explosion. The extra electricity crackling for the thing shows it's down for the count.

Cortana gives them the good news, earning plenty of cheers from everyone on the open channel. Del Rio orders the troops to disengage and fall back for pick up, but Lasky happily interrupts. The Covenant have been on the retreat for a full minute now, and what's left of the well's defense force has decided to live to fight another day. The Captain seems sour about the disruption, but he still calmly orders everyone to "get back on _Infinity_ before any other surprises show up."

Samus sighs, moving towards the Warthog. "That sounds like he's getting ready to run. Again."

"We have time to try convincing him," Chief says firmly. He almost sounds like he believes it.

Cortana shakes her head in his visor, obviously sharing Samus' doubts.

It takes about 30 minutes to load the Marines onto _Infinity_ and get into the atmosphere, then ten more for the ranking officers to gather in the bridge. Chief and Samus aren't stopped when they enter the meeting this time. But they notice how the security force is watching Samus intently: clearly, they remember what happened last time.

Del Rio spends the first few minutes getting reports on _Infinity_ 'sstatus, which is easily surmised as "barely functional." The crash and the two small wars they waged with Covenant have damaged everything in some shape or form. She'll still fly back to Earth, but she's one ambush away from that becoming a gamble. Palmer reports the soldier casualties make another operation like the last one impossible. And even Lasky's precious Mammoth took too many hits to be good for anything else. _Infinity_ isn't down for the count, but she's on her last legs.

Which makes Chief's portion of the debrief go over even less smoothly. He barely gets the first sentence out of his mouth before Del Rio's face spells out how little he's listening. Palmer and Lasky show healthy skepticism to the "robots are converted ancient humans" portion, but they at least hear him out. Particularly the part about the Didact being a Forerunner that's trying to access a weapon that could wipe out humanity. Samus quietly stays off to the side, watching more than listening, while Cortana tries to offer up scans that support her partner.

And it all adds up to Del Rio blowing them off entirely. The Captain faces the rest of the bridge support crew the moment he's done. "Nav, as soon as we know we are airtight, I want a course laid for Carinae Station. Comm, prep a warning beacon."

Master Chief steps around the holodeck, getting slightly closer to him. "Sir, we've seen what the Didact's capable of. Humanity will be at risk if we let him leave this planet."

"Look..." the CO says almost tiredly. "I understand what you thinkwhat you saw."

Samus shakes her head, already stepping towards the exit while Cortana raises her voice. "THINK?!"

"With all due respect, sir..." the Spartan says as he positions himself between Cortana and Del Rio. "I know what I saw. What we all saw."

Del Rio steps up to him, visibly irritated. "And with all due respect, soldier, I'm not willing to jeopardize my ship because of the hallucinations of an aging Spartan, his malfunctioning AI, and their soldier of fortune partner."

All the bridge security force tenses up when Samus turns and approaches the holodeck again. Her visor is transparent, revealing a calm face that stops next to Chief. "Care to look me in the eye and say that?" Her voice is steady, but her curled fist on the table spells out her thoughts clearly.

"Someone get these three out of here," the Captain says as he walks away. "Nav, do we have confirmation-"

The lights start to flicker across the bridge, making the humans pause.

"I will not… allow you… to leave… this… PLANET!" As Cortana roars, her voice fully distorted, several consoles around the room release a shower of sparks. Crewmen duck from the arcing electricity, most of them letting out surprised yelps. The ship seems to shudder from the power surge before stabilizing a moment later.

Everyone turns to the AI. She's leaned over, panting slightly from the outburst. The anger in her face quickly turns to realization, and then regret. "No… No, no, I didn't mean to do that."

"Lasky…" Del Rio looks more surprised, and afraid, than anyone on the bridge. "Pursuant to Article 55 of UNSC Regulation 12-145-72, I am ordering you to remove the AI's data chip and retire it for final dispensation."

The XO hesitates for a moment. There's no fear in his eyes, only concerned debating what to do. His superior sees it and anger overpowers fear. "Remove that chip now, Commander!"

Cortana starts to softly plead as Lasky approaches the deck. His almost robotic movements are interrupted by the solid form of the Bounty Hunter. She quickly pulls Cortana's chip from the holodeck, then nudges him back with the barrel of her cannon. The sound of a dozen rifles being readied echoes in the silent room, but no one fires.

"Leave her," Samus orders calmly, looking down at him.

Lasky seems awestruck but regains control quickly. He nods and takes a step back.

"Surrender that AI, now." That Captain is keeping his distance, trying to seem as authoritative as possible from the other side of the table.

Samus scoffs as she moves towards the door. "Your own men don't respect you. Why should I."

Del Rio makes another desperate attempt to stop her, sprinting until he's blocking the door. He tries his best to appear imposing as he stands in her way. "Give me the AI now, and you'll be arrested instead of executed." The threat rings as hollow as his voice.

The Bounty Hunter doesn't stop until she's an inch from him. She puts the hand holding Cortana slightly behind her and well away from his reach. "Better than you have tried."

Chief quickly joins his partners and puts his body between them. "She's staying with us, Captain. The Didact has to be stopped. If you won't do that, we will."

Samus takes the opportunity to step past them and out the door. "We'll meet you in the hangar. Bring plenty of ammo."

Del Rio makes a final desperate attempt at gaining control. "I am ordering you… To surrender that AI!" he shouts at the Spartan. "Both of you!"

Chief looks down at him and very slowly shakes his head. "No, sir." Without another word, he walks past the Captain and after Samus.

There's shouting behind him, mostly at Lasky and the security team, for someone to get Cortana back and arrest everyone. But they don't follow. Master Chief walks with a calm purpose towards the hangar, quietly wondering when he's going to run into a squad of Spartans with orders to take him in.

Samus quickly navigates the maze of the ship, putting a hundred yards of distance between herself and the bridge before she even slows. She learned most of the layout when she walked through it before and has a good idea of her destination. It's a helpful habit she's developed over the years. Never know when a quick exit is necessary and there's no time to find a map.

But she also knows better than to waste tools. So, when she's certain no one is following her and there's no crewmen near enough to eavesdrop, she holds Cortana's chip out in front of her.

The AI quickly materializes. "Thank you..." she says softly, equal parts grateful and worried. "But you shouldn't have done that."

"I wasn't going to let them decommission you, especially because the Captain said so," the Bounty Hunter nods calmly. "Point me towards the hangar. We can talk on the way."

Cortana stays in her holographic form as she's carried the proper direction. "Why did you do that, Samus?… I might sound ungrateful, but I didn't expect you to stand up for me. I thought it would be John, if anyone."

"If I had to guess, he was arguing with himself: the military he's served all his life, or you. I didn't have that debate to slow me down."

"No, but you don't have much of a reason to help me, either."

"Maybe this is my way of thanking you for helping me realize I was an idiot earlier." Samus lets out a small, dark laugh. "Or maybe I enjoy trying to save lost causes."

Cortana raises a confused eyebrow, and then her form shimmers for a moment. She looks away somewhat sheepishly.

Samus nods, her visor going transparent again to show her eyes. "Rampancy doesn't sound like a pleasant way to go. I'm sorry."

"You..." The AI's voice falters for a moment. "You heard us talking?"

"You've been having trouble controlling what you broadcast on your radio, just like your trouble maintaining his visor."

"How much do you know, then?"

Samus sighs to herself as she turns down another corridor. "I know it's killing you, painfully, that you're losing control, and your best hope is getting back to Earth where you both think a Doctor Halsey might be able to fix you. And I know you're in worse shape than you're telling him."

"That's… pretty much it, actually," Cortana says with a small shrug.

"So we need to wrap this up quickly, then," Samus says with a bit of fake cheerfulness. "We kill the Didact, destroy the Pirate ship with them in it, get back to my ship, and fly to Earth before dinner. I've seen even more impossible tasks pulled off."

Cortana laughs. She doesn't shimmer this time, and her laughter is genuine. "I get the feeling you were the one who did most of them… Thank you."

"If you can convince Chief to help us take care of the Pirates, we'll be even."

"Deal," the AI says with a smile. "Take the left at the end. We're almost there."

"I thought the hangar was further down."

"It is. That's the armory. John's going to need bigger guns if we're fighting the Didact and the Pirates."

* * *

So apologies to everyone for the delay in getting this chapter posted. Things got a little chaotic here and on my commissioner's end. Let me put it this way: the weekend that I was going to finish the edits of this chapter, my son decided to be born two and a half weeks early. I finally got everything finished the weekend after, the commissioner moved apartments. So yeah, no shortage of real life issues slowing the next chapter down.

But yes, the next chapter is still being commissioned, and I should start working on it soon. Hope life is treating everyone else kindly! And once again, have to give a shout out to the commissioner of this story. mch-raildex over on DeviantArt is the user name. Give them the credit they deserve!


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